1  I!!!  !"  ij  '  . 

'FMA 


iiiiiiiiilitiiiiiiii 


V^:HaSE'feM^LIIM.A:!1ip  {NSDRlpt^DN  IS  THIS  ? 


JOHN  I.  RIEGEL 


AND 


JOI 


JAN  101918 


r 


!.:•■¥ 


...o.  3S242/ 


.^^^OfW%^ 


SIMON 

SON  OF  MAN 


A  COGNOMEN  OF  UNDOUBTED  HISTORICITY, 
OBSCURED  BY  TRANSLATION  AND  LOST  IN 
THE  RESPLENDENCE  OF  A  DUAL  APPELLATIVE 


BY      ^ 
JOHN  I.   RIEGEL 

AND 

JOHN  H.  JORDAN 


'What  think  ye  of  the  Messiah?  Whose  son  [Bar]  is  he?" — 
Matt,   xxii,    42. 

'Ha  Gi'ora." — Syriac  version  of  John  xix,  5;  "Behold  the 
Man." — English   Version   of  John   xix.    5. 

"The  truth  shall  make  you  free." — John  viii,  32. 

'For  there  is  nothing  hid,  which  shall  not  be  manifested ; 
neither  was  there  anything  kept  secret  but  that  it  should 
come  abroad.  If  anv  man  have  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear." 
— Mark  iv,  22-23. 


BOSTON 

SHERA^LAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 

1917 


Copyright,  1917 
Sheemast,  French  6*  Company 


PREFACE 

"  The  open  mind  implies  such  a  quiet  holding  in  abeyance 
and  balancing  of  personal  opinions  and  habits,  of  tradi- 
tional and  current  views,  that  one  may  come  to  the  task 
of  interpretation  with  something  of  the  freshness  that  be- 
longs to  a  new  investigation." —  Fotwin. 

"  It  is  the  duty  of  every  honest  citizen  of  the  world  to  be 
jealous  at  all  times  that  there  should  be  no  perversions  of 
the  facts  of  liistory." —  Anok. 

This  book  is  in  no  sense  a  polemical  work.  It 
is  written  because  of  the  historical  value  of  its 
subject  matter,  and  with  no  thought  of  giving  of- 
fense to  any  person,  even  to  the  most  sensitive 
soul,  and  least  of  all  to  overthrow  anyone's  reli- 
gious convictions.  It  is  hoped,  first,  that  its  ar- 
gument will  not  be  construed  against  the  cherished 
belief  of  any  person  in  the  real  divinity  of  the  Son 
of  Man ;  and,  second,  that  its  scientific  trend  will 
be  apreciated  by  all  who  will  peruse  it. 

If  it  appears  to  humanize  him  whom  many  mil- 
lions of  the  human  race  have  worshipped  as  divine, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Church,  likewise, 
has  at  all  times  strenuously  withstood  the  Docetic 
theory  that  he  was  wholly  a  divine  being.  It  is  an 
unworthy  thought  and  little  appreciative  of  the 
dignity  and  divinity  of  human  nature  that  identify- 
ing the  Son  of  Man  with  a  real  historical  character 

iii 


iv  PREFACE 

of  flesh,  and  blood,  and  bone  and  breath,  in  any 
sense  detracts  from  the  divinity  of  his  great  com- 
manding soul.  To  treat  the  writings  of  the  New 
Testament  as  human  documents  is  not  at  all  to 
offer  offense  against  the  Christian  religion,  for 
Christianity  existed  before  the  writings  of  the 
New  Testament,  which,  it  must  be  admitted,  were 
written  in  time,  by  human  beings,  and  are,  there- 
fore, subject  to  the  limitations  of  all  temporal 
things. 

The  perusal  of  this  work  by  candid  and  open- 
minded  readers  can  only  produce  a  better  under- 
standing between  Christians  and  Jews,  showing,  as 
it  does,  the  grounds  for  a  common  sympathy  be- 
tween men  who  share  with  each  other  many  canons 
of  a  common  faith.  The  Christian  reader  will  lay 
the  book  down  with  deeper  sympathy  for  the  racial 
aspirations  and  with  the  immeasurable  sufferings 
of  the  Jews.  The  Jewish  reader  will  see  in  the 
Son  of  Man  one  to  whom  his  heart  can  go  out  in 
loving  veneration,  if  not,  indeed,  in  worship,  the 
one  who  made  the  supreme  sacrifice  for  his  ancient 
race. 

The  Roman  Empire  is  no  more ;  there  is  no  rea- 
son today  to  hide  unpleasant  facts  from  its  proud- 
est and  most  sensitive  citizens.  The  object  for 
which  the  crypticism  of  the  Gospels  was  conceived 
no  longer  exists ;  it  is  now  neither  politic  nor  prof- 
itable to  say  Jew  when  Roman  is  meant,  or  Jeru- 
salem, when  Rome  is  intended ;  and  there  is  nobody 
living  to  take  offense  at  the  plain  statement  of 


PREFACE  V 

historical  fact  that  upon  the  Roman  alone  rests 
the  crime  of  cruelly  putting  to  death  him  whom 
his  people  proclaimed  without  ever  a  vacillation, 
the  veritable  King  of  the  Jews. 

Josephus,  the  traitor,  is  dead.  It  is  a  matter 
of  regret  that  the  malignant  calumnies  he  uttered 
against  the  greatest  of  his  race  do  not  now  lie  with 
him  in  his  forgotten  grave.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
now,  even  after  nineteen  centuries  have  rolled  over 
his  dust,  it  is  not  too  late  to  rehabilitate  the  char- 
acter he  sought  to  defame  with  his  foulest  false- 
hoods and  to  re-introduce  to  the  world  in  his  true 
estate  the  sublimest  of  all  the  Jewish  race. 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

I  have  read  the  manuscript  of  Simon  Son-of- 
Man  with  very  great  interest  and  satisfaction.  I 
need  hardly  say  that,  as  a  lawyer,  I  am  in  com- 
plete agreement  with  the  thesis  of  the  work,  the 
identification  of  the  great  soul  whose  intense  life- 
work  was  devoted  to  the  political  improvement  of 
his  people  and  which  has  engrossed  the  attention 
of  civilization  for  nineteen  hundred  years. 

The  treatment  of  the  subject  in  these  pages  is 
excellent  —  reverent,  dignified,  convincing,  and  is 
carried  forward  to  ultimate  conclusions.  This  is 
especially  the  case  with  those  chapters  which  in- 
volve questions  of  the  practice  and  application  of 
Roman  law  and  penology.  I  have  carefully  fol- 
lowed the  arguments  of  other  authors  on  the  trial 
and  execution  of  the  vanquished  King  of  the  Jews, 
and  in  my  judgment  the  development  of  these  sub- 
jects in  this  manuscript  is  the  first  which  correctly 
deals  with  these  frequently-discussed  events.  This 
result  is,  no  doubt,  due  largely  to  the  discovery 
by  the  authors  of  the  actual  ground  upon  which 
these  events  took  place.  This  new  point  of  view 
of  theirs  provides  a  practical  use  of  a  positive 
knowledge  of  judicial  procedure  applicable  to  the 
persons,  places  and  period  involved.     The  authors 


viii  PREFATORY  NOTE 

of  the  manuscript  have  also  simplified  a  compre- 
hension of  the  trial  by  adhering  mainly  to  the  old- 
est source,  the  report  contained  in  the  second  Gos- 
pel, and  by  ignoring  all  later  accretions  added  for 
their  dramatic  effect  upon  the  reader.  The  re- 
port of  the  trial  and  execution  of  the  Son  of  Man 
recorded  in  the  most  ancient  text  and  read  from 
the  view-point  furnished  by  this  book  records  a 
perfectly  legal  procedure,  and  avoids  the  gross 
illegality  and  contradictions  involved  in  the  syn- 
thetic view.  Their  development  of  the  facts  from 
the  Christian  records  is  an  accomplishment  which, 
I  believe,  has  not  been  attained  by  any  prior 
author  or  investigator,  and  hence  all  the  more 
worthy  of  extensive  reading  at  this  time. 

I  look  forward  to  the  publication  of  this  work. 
It  will  be  of  very  great  interest  and  value  to  the 
layman  as  well  as  to  the  theologian  and  student  of 
history.  One  cannot  but  admire  the  perseverance 
and  painstaking  labors  of  the  authors  in  compil- 
ing such  a  stupendous  fund  of  information  and 
fact  within  so  small  a  compass  for  convenient  ref- 
erence. I  express  the  hope  of  the  authors  that 
their  labors  will  bless  humanity  for  centuries  to 
come  by  lifting  an  enormous  burden  from  its  be- 
liefs and  inculcated  convictions  which  have  been 
based  largely  upon  error  that  should  have  been 
discovered  long  ago,  judging  from  the  simplicity 
with  which  the  problem  is  here  developed  scien- 
tifically for  the  first  time,  and  apparently  for  all 
time. 


PREFATORY  NOTE  ix 

If  the  encouragement  and  assistance  I  have 
given  the  authors  has  contributed  to  this  end  I  am 
deeply  gratified. 

William  J.  Toeeey 
Scranton,  Pa. 
September,  1917. 


ACKNOAVLEDGMENT 

The  authors  desire  publicly  to  acknowledge 
their  indebtedness  to  William  J.  Torrej,  Esq.,  of 
Scranton,  Pa.,  for  his  generous  assistance  in  the 
preparation  and  the  publication  of  this  book,  for 
his  careful  reading  of  the  work  in  manuscript  and 
in  proof,  and  in  particular  for  his  candid  criticism 
and  stimulating  suggestions  which  have  helped  to 
make  the  book  more  convincing  and  more  complete. 


INTRODUCTION 

The  primary  object  of  this  work  is  to  demon- 
strate that  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  of  Christian- 
ity was  an  historical  personage  whose  existence  is 
proven  in  the  works  of  the  profane  historians  of 
the  early  centuries  of  the  Christian  era. 

The  method  by  which  this  proof  has  been  pre- 
sented is  through  an  examination  of  the  Gospels 
—  mainly  that  of  the  Mark  —  in  the  light  of  the 
theory  which  is  centuries  old,  but  which  has  re- 
ceived its  most  convincing  proofs  in  the  writings 
of  Abbott  and  Resch,  who  aim  to  demonstrate 
"  that  there  is  no  antecedent  improbability  in  the 
hypothesis  that  the  earliest  written  Gospel  was 
composed  in  Biblical  Hebrew,"  intermixed  with 
Aramaic  expressions.  See  Abbott's  "  Clue."  Al- 
though Aramaic,  heir  and  next  of  kin  to  the  dece- 
dent language,  was  the  everyday  speech  of  the 
Palestinian  Jews,  Greek  was  the  international  lan- 
guage, the  French  of  the  ancient  world.  It  was 
extensively  used  by  the  Jews  and  almost  exclu- 
sively by  the  Gentiles  who  lived  north  and  north- 
east of  Jerusalem ;  and  Latin  was  fairly  well  un- 
derstood by  the  people  in  Galilee.  It  will  be  seen, 
however,  that  the  following  work  is  radically  dif- 
ferent in  its  aim  from  the  efforts  of  Abbott  and 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

Resch,  and,  indeed,  from  the  work  of  every  prior 
author  who  has  attempted  to  restate  the  life  of  the 
Jesus.  In  taking  this  stand  the  authors  early 
bore  in  mind  the  fact  that  the  Gnostics,  or 
"  Knowing  Ones,"  read  out  of  the  Gospels  a  mean- 
ing so  different  from  that  which  later  Christians 
found  therein  that  the  former  have  always  been 
designated  as  the  "  first  heretics  "  of  Christianity. 
So  also,  and  chiefly,  have  the  authors  ever  had  in 
mind  that  the  "  Paul  "  of  the  Epistles,  who  de- 
clared that  the  praise  of  his  brother  occurs  in  "  the 
Gospel,"  was  very  familiar  with  Greek  literature 
and  proficient  in  that  cultivated  language.  Es- 
pecially notable  is  his  use  of  the  words  "  to  kick 
against  the  pricks,"  a  phrase  which  is  put  by  Eu- 
ripides, in  the  Bacchae,  into  the  mouth  of  Di- 
onysus. Supporting  this  view  of  the  man  is  the 
statement  of  Josephus  {Vita,  9)  concerning  "  Jus- 
tus of  Tiberias  " : 

He  incited  the  multitude  to  revolt,  for  his  abilities 
lay  in  popular  preaching,  in  invective  against  his  op- 
ponents, and  in  the  seductive  witchery  of  his  words, 
for  he  was  not  inexpert  in  the  culture  of  the  Greeks. 
Confident  of  that  skill  he  set  his  hand  to  write  a  his- 
tory of  the  Revolt  for  the  purpose  of  covering-up  the 
truth.  Regarding  this  man,  the  phaulos  life  he 
led,  and  how  with  his  brother  he  caused  the  great 
catastrophe,  I  shall  explain  a  little  in  the  progress  of 
this  work. 

This  he  proceeded  to  do  in  such  a  vigorous  man- 
ner, particuarly  in  sections  65,  70  and  74  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

Vita,  as  to  leave  no  doubt  regarding  the  identity 
of  Justus,  and  hence  no  question  of  the  identity  of 
the  author  of  the  original  Gospel  containing  the 
history  of  this  "  elder  [greater]  brother "  in 
cryptic  form. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  discovery  that  the 
writings  of  "  Paul  "  are  deliberate  cryptic  history, 
it  is  at  once  clear  that  translation  into  the  ver- 
nacular of  this  "  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews  "  must 
serve  to  restore,  as  nearly  as  is  possible  after  almost 
nineteen  centuries,  the  original  sense,  if  not  the 
text  of  the  Gospel.  By  making  the  attempt  upon 
the  whole  of  the  New  Testament  it  readily  becomes 
apparent,  as  most  authorities  agree,  that  the  Gos- 
pel called  the  Mark  bears  the  stamp  of  priority 
as  a  Hebrew,  and  partly  Aramaic,  composition 
in  which  many  phrases  and  clauses  have  been  pre- 
served to  us  with  remarkable  exactness,  as  will  ap- 
pear in  the  text. 

In  short,  this  treatise  is  the  result  of  a  scien- 
tific investigation  of  the  historical  features  of  the 
Gospels,  as  corroborated  by  the  Apocalypse  and 
secular  history,  partially  classified  for  submission 
to  the  judgment  of  common  sense.  As  such  it  is 
a  departure  from  the  beaten  paths  which  hold  the 
investigator  to  the  peculiar  value  which  ecclesi- 
astical tradition  has  set  upon  the  language  in  the 
Greek  renditions,  except  in  so  far  as  Abbott  has 
demonstrated  the  conflative  characteristics  of  the 
Gospels ;  though  he  did  not  attempt  to  show,  nor 
did  he  even  conceive  the  possibility  of  a  continuous 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

narrative  bearing  the  earmarks  of  faithful  history. 
Naturally  it  has  not  been  found  possible  in  the 
attempt  to  arrive  at  the  complete  story,  which  can 
be  found  only  after  a  thorough  scrutiny  of  the 
original  texts  and  the  conversion  of  these  into  He- 
brew and  the  Aramaic  in  use  during  the  lifetime 
of  "  Paul,"  and  chiefly  as  used  by  that  author. 
This  is,  perhaps,  the  business  of  a  university,  not 
of  a  few  investigators;  and  one  of  the  objects  in 
submitting  this  treatise  is  to  suggest  to  the  uni- 
versities of  America  and  Europe  that  such  a  work 
would  be  well  worth  while  if  the  controversy  con- 
cerning Christian  origins  continues  to  wage  in  the 
future  as  it  has  waged  in  recent  years.  It  is  the 
opinion  of  the  authors,  however,  that  with  the 
internal  evidence  herein  set  forth,  further  interest 
in  the  mere  question  of  the  existence  of  the  great 
character  portrayed  by  the  Gospel  must  lag,  ex- 
cept as  a  matter  of  historical  importance. 


CONTENTS 


II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

XI 

XII 

XIII 

XIV 

XV 

XVI 

XVII 

XVIII 


The  Question,  Its  Difficulties  and 

THE  Documents 1 

The  Real  Name  of  the  Jesus  was 

"  Son  of  Man  " 8 

The   Messiah  to  be  a  War  Lord, 

NOT  A  Prince  of  Peace     ...  13 

The  Unrelenting  Roman  in  Judea  19 

The  Whirlwind  of  Kadesh  ...  40 

Arrest  of  the  Son  of  Man  ...  47 

Trial  of  the  Son  of  Man  ...  58 

The  Triumph  of  Titus  Travestied  65 

"  The  Place  of  a  Skull  "  .      .      .68 

The  Body  which  was  Broken     .      .  85 

Joseph  'Ara  Mathias  and  Veronica 
See  the  Body 


Ex  Uno  Plures 

Simon  Magus,  the  Son  of  Man 

Magus  and  the  Magd-Helene   . 

Simon  as  the  Crowned  Kino     . 

"  Thou  Art  a  Samaritan  "  . 

Behold  the  Handmaid  of  the  Lord  125 

The  Son  of  Man  as  Menandros     .    130 


89 
92 

98 
107 
113 
119 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIX  Bar  Gi'ora  as  Simon  Bar  Chochab   135 

XX  The  Son  of  Man  as  Apollonius     .    147 

XXI  The  Tell-Tale  Greek  Article      .    154 

XXII     The  Boanerges 159 

XXIII  The  Geenna  of  Fire       .      .      .      .167 

XXIV  What  Revelation  Reveals  .      .      ,    177 

XXV  The  Exposure  of  Miracle  Stories  204 

XXVI  Other  Miracles  and  the  Parables  214 

XXVII     The  Beatitudes 227 

XXVIII  The  "  Lord's  Prayer  "    .      .      .      .231 

XXIX  Early  Christian  Chronology    .      .   236 

XXX  From  Crypticism  to  Criticism     .      .   251 

XXXI  The  Story  of  the  Coins  ....    256 

XXXII     Conclusion 265 


SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 


THE  QUESTION,  ITS  DIFFICULTIES 
AND  THE  DOCUMENTS 

"  It   is   clear   enough   that   custom   and   convention  have 
acted  as  narcotics  on  the  mind,  sending  reason  to  sleep." 

Is  there  not  somewhere  in  the  contemporary 
writings  of  his  time  a  single  scrap  of  authentic 
history  regarding  the  reputed  founder  of  Chris- 
tianity? Is  there  any  mention  anywhere  outside 
the  New  Testament  and  the  Apocryphal  Gospels 
of  a  single  fact  tending  to  prove  that  such  a  per- 
son ever  existed  on  this  earth? 

Philo-Judaeus,  the  most  prolific  of  all  Jewish 
religio-philosophical  writers,  who  was  born  some- 
where between  ten  and  twenty  years  before  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  and  who  was  liv- 
ing in  the  year  40  of  that  era,  some  seven  years 
after  the  commonly  accepted  date  of  the  Ascen- 
sion of  the  Jesus,  makes  absolutely  no  mention  of 
him  at  all. 

The  reference  in  Suetonius  to  a  certain  Chres- 
tus  who  caused  a  Semitic  sedition  in  Rome  during 
the  reign  of  Claudius,  resulting  in  the  expulsion 
of  the  Jews  from  Rome,  could  not  have  been 
meant  for  Christus,  who  was  not  in  Rome  during 
the  reign  of  Claudius. 


2  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  spurious  passage  in  Tacitus  malignantly 
accusing  Nero  of  the  barbaric  burning  of  Chris- 
tians as  human  torches,  has  been  proven  to  be  an 
interpolation  which  stands  as  a  monument  rather 
to  piety  than  to  truth. 

Flavins  Josephus,  the  Jewish  historian  of  that 
time,  makes  no  mention  whatever  of  him  under  the 
name  given  him  in  the  Gospels.  Flavins  Josephus 
was  governor  of  Galilee  in  66  and  67  of  the 
Christian  era,  and  though,  in  his  writings,  he 
covers  every  phase  of  Jewish  history  and  every 
movement  of  any  moment  that  occurred  in  Pales- 
tine from  Creation  to  his  own  day,  he  lets  drop 
no  word  which  would  raise  a  suspicion  that  he  had 
ever  heard  of  a  person  called  Jesus  Christ.  Yet, 
according  to  the  Gospels,  tens  of  thousands  of 
people  followed  the  Jesus  from  one  end  of  the 
country  to  the  other.  Vast  multitudes,  forsaking 
their  everyday  work  and  means  of  livelihood,  we 
are  told,  pursued  him  in  all  his  journeyings,  even 
out  into  the  desert  wilds  where,  having  provided 
no  food  for  themselves,  they  were  fed  by  this  won- 
der of  wonder-workers.  Great  multitudes  from 
Galilee  sought  him,  and  from  Judea,  from  Perea 
beyond  the  Jordan  to  the  sea,  and  from  Tyre  and 
Sidon  up  in  the  north,  and  from  distant  Idumea 
in  the  south.  This  man's  fame,  it  is  said,  had 
reached  far  beyond  the  confines  of  his  own  coun- 
try, and  had  attracted  streams  of  strangers  over 
rock-ribbed  mountains  and  torrential  rivers,  over 
difficult  roads  where  the  only  means  of  travel  was 


THE  QUESTION  3 

by  foot,  and  yet  the  governor  of  the  very  province 
that  is  said  to  have  been  his  home  does  not  men- 
tion the  name  that  untold  millions  hold  to  be  the 
greatest  among  all  the  sons  of  men. 

It  is  thought  by  some  that  Josephus  ignores 
the  name  of  Jesus  for  fear  of  offending  Caesar; 
yet  he  does  mention  Judas  the  Galilean,  Theudas, 
and  a  dozen  others  more  offensive  to  the  emperor, 
for  these  sought  to  overturn  the  power  of  Rome. 
Others  think  —  though  without  a  shred  of  evi- 
dence —  that  Josephus  did  mention  him,  but  in 
such  an  unworthy  way  that  Christian  hands  de- 
leted the  story  utterly  from  his  works,  destroying 
it  as  they  destroyed  almost  all  other  writings 
against  the  faith.  While  the  holders  of  such  an 
opinion  have  an  adequate  conception  of  what  pious 
hands  can  do,  their  theory  is  negatived  by  the 
fact  that  there  is  no  apparent  hiatus  left  there 
in  Josephus'  history.  Everything  except  a  few 
glaring  interpolations,  follows  in  orderly  se- 
quence, each  succeeding  chapter  dove-tailing  with 
the  preceding  one  without  any  evidence  of  violent 
disseverance. 

Rev.  S.  Baring-Gould,  in  his  "  Lost  and  Hos- 
tile Gospels,"  says :  "  It  is  deserving  of  remark 
that  many  of  the  Rabbis  whose  sayings  are 
recorded  in  the  Mischna  [or  first  portion  of  the 
Talmud],  lived  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  or  shortly 
after,  and  yet  that  not  the  smallest  reference  is 
made  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  nor  even  any  al- 
lusion to  him  personally.     Although  the  Mischna 


4  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

was  drawn  up  beside  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  at  Tiber- 
ias, near  where  Jesus  lived  and  wrought  miracles 
and  taught,  neither  he  nor  his  followers  are  men- 
tioned once  throughout  the  Mischna." 

These  observations  bring  many  to  the  con- 
clusion that  no  such  individual  as  the  Jesus  ever 
did  exist.  For,  a  history  of  India  that  would 
ignore  the  existence  of  Buddha,  a  history  of  Ger- 
many without  a  mention  of  Luther,  or  of  Ireland 
without  the  name  of  St.  Patrick,  would  be  utterly 
inconceivable.  Such  critics  conclude  that  the  ab- 
sence of  all  reference  to  the  Jesus  in  the  history 
of  Josephus  or  in  the  Mischna  is  a  certain  proof 
of  his  non-existence.  According  to  these,  there- 
fore, the  Gospels  are  pure  fiction  in  the  modern 
sense,  and  have  no  historical  foundation  at  all. 

But  is  not  tliis  crediting  to  the  authors  of  the 
Gospels  greater  creative  imagination  than  all  the 
Shakespeares  of  the  world  possessed?  Not  even 
the  greatest  of  all  the  English  poets  could  frame 
a  fiction  concerning  men  who  never  lived  on  land 
or  sea. 

It  does  not  appear  to  have  occurred  to  many 
that  the  personalities  in  the  Gospel  story  may  be 
found  in  Josephus  under  other  and  different 
names.  In  searching  through  this  history  for 
their  identification,  we  must  not  forget  the  point 
of  view  of  the  writer,  whether  he  be  a  friend  or 
an  enemy  of  the  person  whom  he  describes.  We 
can  well  imagine  that  had  the  American  Revolu- 
tion been  a  failure,  a  character  sketch  of  George 


THE  QUESTION  5 

Washington  written  by  Benedict  Arnold  to  pass 
the  censorship  of  King  George  III  would  have 
been  quite  different  from  the  idealistic  picture  of 
the  haloed  and  hallowed  "  Father  of  His  Coun- 
try "  which,  in  our  childhood  days,  we  contem- 
plated with  such  sincere  affection.  We  must  re- 
member that  all  men  are  human,  and  are  neither 
blackened  flame-breathing  demons,  as  their  hated 
enemies  would  depict  them,  nor  diaphanous  angels 
of  light  as  seen  through  eyes  of  passionate  love 
and  devotion. 

We  should  keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  Josephus, 
who  was  one  of  the  originators  of  the  Jewish 
patriotic  uprising  to  throw  off  the  tyranny  of  the 
Roman  yoke,  turned  traitor  to  his  country's 
cause.  In  order  to  save  his  own  wretched  ex- 
istence, he  played  the  poltroon  and  the  charlatan, 
and  sold  his  country  to  the  Romans  for  a  life  of 
leisure  at  the  hands  of  his  nation's  destroyers. 
His  history  of  the  Jewish  rebellion,  as  we  shall 
show  later,  was  written  to  extenuate  his  own  act 
of  treason  and  the  acts  of  the  men  who  mercilessly 
butchered  his  brethren  by  the  million.  It  was  a 
prize  story  written  to  flatter  the  vanity  of  his 
country's  cruel  conqueror,  to  justify  the  ruin  of 
his  race  and  the  gory  deeds  that  drove  wandering 
Jews  to  fare  forth  over  all  the  earth  from  the 
crash  of  their  fallen  nation.  And  the  prize  was 
Roman  gold,  the  friendship  of  the  rich  and  great 
of  the  Roman  world  and  the  adoption  of  the 
slanderer  into  the  Flavian  family  of  Roman  em- 


6  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

perors.  Flavius  Josephus  felt  greater  honor  in 
fraternizing  with  Flavius  Vespasianus  and  Flavius 
Titus  than  as  the  Jewish  Joseph  Bara  Matthias, 
a  plain  patriot,  forever  lost  to  fame,  hanging  for 
his  bleeding  country  from  the  arms  of  a  Roman 
cross. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  not  forget  that  if 
men  are  not  sub-human,  neither  are  they,  in  any 
high  percentage,  super-human ;  and  that  a  dozen 
fishermen  picked  up  indiscriminately  at  Cape  Cod 
would  have  at  least  as  many  points  of  perfection, 
if  not  of  imperfection,  as  an  equal  number  of  poor 
wretches  starving  about  the  borders  of  Galveston 
or  Galilee.  With  all  their  faults,  the  slandered 
and  tattered  patriots  of  Josephus,  bespattered 
with  grime  and  gore,  seem  immeasurably  more  hu- 
man and  real  than  the  faded  wraiths  whom  we 
see  as  if  through  gossamer,  fitted  with  translucent 
haloes,  and  flitting  through  the  pages  of  the 
apocryphal  gospels. 

In  searching  for  their  identification  we  must  not 
lose  sight  of  the  times  and  manners  of  that  period 
when  surnames  were  not  so  stable  as  they  are  to- 
day; that,  in  those  days,  names  were  changed 
without  the  authority  of  an  act  of  assembly ;  that 
most  names,  unlike  personal  appellations  of  to- 
day, which  are  generally  meaningless  vocables, 
had  then  definite  meanings  and,  among  a  polyglot 
people,  were  frequently  not  only  transliterated 
but  actually  translated  from  one  language  into 
another;  and  often  an  epithet,  or  title,  especially 


THE  QUESTION  7 

if  merely  transliterated  and  not  translated,  grad- 
ually integrated  into  a  name. 

This  last  mentioned  process  we  perceive  in 
operation  in  the  New  Testament.  In  the  Gospels 
generally  the  Greek  article  "  ho,"  that  is,  "  the," 
is  used  before  the  word  "  lesous,"  while  it  is 
omitted  universally  in  the  Epistles,  the  birth 
stories  and  in  the  Apocalypse.  "  The  Jesus," 
that  is,  "  the  Liberator,"  loses  the  article  and, 
therefore,  its  descriptive  force,  and  becomes 
"  Jesus  "  in  the  later  writings,  integrating  from 
an  epithet  into  a  name.  This  very  fact  proves 
that  the  Epistles  are  the  later  writings  of  the  New 
Testament,  in  spite  of  historical  allusions  inserted 
in  the  text  for  the  purpose  of  "  aging  "  the  docu- 
ments. A  little  reflection  will  then  show  us  that 
"  the  Jesus  "  was  not  his  name,  but  a  title  be- 
stowed by  worshipping  admiration,  and  that  his 
real  name  must  be  sought  for  elsewhere. 


II 

THE  REAL  NAME  OF  THE  JESUS 
WAS  "  SON  OF  MAN  " 

"  To  understand  a  thing  that  seems  obvious,  or  '  in- 
evitable,' is  among  the  problems  that  genius  alone  can  solve 
in  a  complete  way." 

In  the  history  of  Josephus  it  will  be  noticed 
that  the  great  central  figure  of  the  narrative  of 
the  "  Wars  "  is  the  man  this  historian  marks  out 
for  his  blackest  calumnies,  the  greatest  general 
of  the  Jews,  the  patriot  whose  unfailing  faith  in 
God,  and  hope  in  the  direct  intervention  of  Divine 
Providence  worked  out  his  own  undoing  and  that 
of  his  unhappy  country ;  the  man  who,  leading 
undisciplined  multitudes  from  Tyre  to  Idumea, 
and  from  Perea  to  the  sea,  repeatedly  defeating 
the  finest  disciplined  armies  and  the  greatest  mili- 
tary geniuses  the  Roman  Empire  could  produce, 
—  was  Simon  Bar  Giora.  Unrecognized  under 
his  titular  name  of  "  the  Liberator,"  this  great 
man  has  remained  undefended  against  the  traitor- 
ous calumnies  of  the  craven  flatterer  of  the  Flavian 
family. 

In  spite  of  all  his  vilification  at  the  hands  of 
Josephus,  the  fact  stands  out  that  Simon  Bar 
Giora  was  a  man  of  intense,  almost  resistless  en- 

8 


REAL  NAME  OF  THE  JESUS  9 

ergy.  He  swept  like  a  devastating  hurricane 
across  the  hills  of  Idumea  and  the  valleys  and 
plains  of  Judea.  For  three  and  a  half  years 
("  forty-two  months  "  or  "  1260  days  ")  he  kept 
at  bay  the  greatest  army  that  the  broad  empire 
of  Rome  could  furnish,  and  more  than  once  cut 
into  "  fragments  "  and  drove  the  soldiers  like 
swine  by  thousands  into  the  sea. 

The  mountain  of  vituperation  which  the  rene- 
gade Josephus  heaped  upon  this  wonderful  man, 
cannot  hide  the  passionate  patriotism  which  sacri- 
ficed all  for  the  independence  of  his  country,  his 
equally  passionate  devotion  to  the  woman,  name- 
less in  Josephus,  who  shall  ever  be  associated  with 
him  in  glorious  memory,  his  unswerving  faith  in 
the  Lord  of  Hosts  to  intervene  for  his  Chosen 
People  and  to  establish  for  his  own  that  Kingdom 
foretold  by  the  prophets,  who  had  actually  named 
Bar  Gi'ora  as  the  one  who  should  be  the  Liberator 
of  his  people,  Israel.  Did  not  Daniel,  in  fact,  de- 
clare him,  nominatim,  the  Anointed  Savior  and 
Deliverer  of  his  people,  the  Ben  Adam,  the  He- 
brew form  of  the  Aramaic  Bara  Gihhora,  that  is, 
Bar  Gi'ora,  the  "  Son  of  Man  ".? 

Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  was  his  name  according  to 
Greek  orthography  and  phonetics.  Gi'ora  is  the 
equivalent  of  the  Aramaic  Gihhora,  a  word  which 
means  "  man"  "  power,''  "  might"  The  aspi- 
rated or  undageshed  b  being  equivalent  to  our  w, 
and  having  no  equivalent  in  Greek,  was  doubtless 
omitted  in  Greek  transliteration,  as  well  it  might 


10  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

be,  without  materially  affecting  the  phonetic  value 
of  the  word,  as  compensation  for  the  elided  letter 
was  made  by  the  lengthening  of  the  succeeding 
vowel,  in  this  instance  o.  In  our  system,  in  which 
there  is  no  distinction  between  the  long  and  the 
short  o,  the  apostrophe  may  indicate  the  absence 
of  the  aspirate  or  mute  h  in  the  name  of  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora. 

It  will  be  difficult  for  many  whose  minds  have 
become  prejudiced  against  the  great  general  of 
the  Jews  by  the  scurrility  of  that  arch-traitor, 
Josephus,  to  recognize  at  first  glance  as  the  divine 
hero  of  the  Gospels  the  caricature  silhouetted  in 
the   pages    of   his    Jewish   Wars   where   Josephus 

"  Daubed  his  visage  with  the  smut  of  hell." 

But  they  should  reflect  that  not  only  are  we  in 
them  presented  with  pictures  of  one  individual 
from  two  diametrically  opposite  points  of  view, 
one  painted  by  the  abhorrent  maligner,  the  other 
drawn  by  the  worshipping  devotee,  but  also  that 
one  delineator  strives  to  show  us  in  pitchy  outline 
the  picture  of  the  outer  man,  as  he  saw  him 
through  his  distorted  vision,  while  the  other  en- 
deavors to  exhibit  the  inner  man,  faultless  in  the 
eyes  of  his  adorer. 

We  should  likewise  bear  in  mind  that  the  Jesus 
of  the  Matthew  Gospel  is  a  different  character 
from  the  Jesus  of  the  Mark,  who  varies  again 
from  the  Jesus  of  the  Luke ;  all  three  differ  from 
the  gentle  soul  we  see  in  the  John.     The  epistles 


REAL  NAME  OF  THE  JESUS         11 

show  us  a  divine  being  shorn  of  his  human  at- 
tributes, and  all  are  unlike  the  man  of  rage  and 
revenge  seen  in  the  Apocalypse,  who  approaches 
nearest  of  all  to  the  character  sketched  by 
Josephus.  Yet  this  political  apostate,  with  all 
his  hatred  and  venom,  does  not  attain  to  the  ex- 
tremity reached  by  the  writers  of  the  Talmud,  the 
crowning  disgrace  of  which  appears  in  the  Tole- 
doth  Jeshu. 

The  triumph  of  Rome  and  the  terrible  defeat 
M'hich  bled  the  Jewish  nation  white  and  faded  out 
the  very  hopes  of  the  people,  is  reflected  in  the 
pale  and  bloodless  figures  in  the  early  Christian 
literature.  But,  nevertheless,  here  and  there  a 
phrase  or  a  sentence  stands  out  which  indicates 
that  the  Son  of  Man  was  not  in  reality  the  wan 
and  pallid  creature  we  see  in  the  gray  light  of 
the  Gospels. 

The  real  military  character  of  his  mission  oc- 
casionally flashes  forth  in  such  sentences  as  that 
in  Matthew  10:  34,  in  which  he  is  quoted  as  say- 
ing, "  I  came  not  to  send  peace  but  the  sword." 
His  real  mission  is  indicated  in  Luke  22 :  36,  in 
which  with  ardor  he  exclaims,  "  He  that  hath  not, 
let  him  sell  his  coat  and  buy  a  sword." 

The  fact  that  his  followers  carried  swords  is 
plain  in  Mark  14:47,  where  "one  of  them  who 
stood  by  drew  his  sword,  struck  the  high  priest's 
servant,  and  cut  off  his  ear."  The  Apocalypse  is 
aflame  with  the  flashing  of  many  swords. 

That  his   followers   were   Jewish  patriots   first 


12  SI.AION  SON  OF  MAN 

of  all  is  apparent  from  the  question  raised  in 
Acts  1:6,"  Your  Lordship ;  will  you  immediately 
restore  the  kingdom?  " 

It  is  also  plain  that  earthly  success  by  the 
sword  was  the  hope  of  the  Boanerges,  when  their 
mother  begs  the  boon  that  each  of  them  be  given 
a  position  in  the  chancellery  nearest  of  all  to  the 
throne  (Matt.  20:21),  It  is  not  conceivable 
that  "  the  light  of  the  world  "  would  leave  in  the 
dark  his  most  intimate  "  brothers,"  as  he  called 
them,  or,  at  least,  "  brethren " ;  at  any  event, 
adelphoi,  in  the  Greek.  As  their  nickname  indi- 
cates, they  were  men  of  the  sword,  an  instrument 
not  primarily  intended  for  the  establishment  of 
spiritual  realms,  but,  rather,  for  the  erection  of 
political  kingdoms  upon  this  earth. 


Ill 

THE  MESSIAH  TO  BE  A  WAR  LORD, 
NOT  A  PRINCE  OF  PEACE 

"  The  Messiah,  for  the  Jew,  is  never  a  redeemer  from 
original  sin.  He  is,  however,  the  restorer  of  the  state. 
He  is  King  David,  come  again  to  rule  over  an  independent 
people,  freed  from  the  dominion  of  the  foreigners." — 
Rabbi  Emil  G.  Hirsch. 

It  does  not  appear  to  be  generally  understood 
that  the  promised  Messiah,  or  King  and  Libera- 
tor, of  the  Jews  was  to  be  a  War-Lord,  rather 
than  a  Prince  of  Peace,  except  in  the  sense  that 
he  should  bring  about  "  the  terrible  day  of  the 
lord "  by  making  wars  hideous  thereafter.  He 
not  only  would  liberate  the  Jews,  but  with  him 
they  would  dominate  the  world. 

Judea  lay  geographically  in  the  path  of  con- 
quering armies  passing  between  the  East  and  the 
West.  It  had  been  beaten  down  under  the  ter- 
rible tread  of  successive  hosts  of  Assyrians, 
Babylonians,  Medes  and  Persians,  Macedonians, 
Greeks,  Syrians,  Egyptians,  and  latterly  by  the 
galling  heel  of  the  all-conquering  Roman.  Car- 
ried away  by  thousands  into  captivity,  into 
Bab^'lonia  and  Persia,  the  tlews  ever  looked  for- 
ward to  a  period  when  there  would  be  a  surcease 

13 


14  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

of  their  sorrows,  and  they  would  not  only  rule 
their  own  realm,  but  they  would  attain  the  mas- 
tery of  the  world.  They  had  been  sustained  and 
soothed  in  their  many  sorrows  by  faith  in  the 
covenant  which,  it  was  said,  their  ancestor  Ab- 
raham had  made  with  a  god,  Yahweh,  one  of  the 
many  gods  of  the  peoples  who  inhabited  the  coun- 
tries of  Western  Asia.  Yahweh,  it  was  believed, 
had  promised  on  condition  that  they  should  ac- 
cept him  as  their  god  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 
gods, — "  there  should  be  no  other  gods  than  he  " 
— he  would  take  them  to  himself  as  his  Chosen 
People  and  the  whole  earth  would  be  their  inherit- 
ance. "  The  glory  of  the  Jewish  people,"  says 
Dujardin,  "  is  that  it,  the  lowliest  people  of  the 
East,  came  to  dream,  like  the  Roman  people,  of 
material  conquest,  of  the  political  submission  of 
the  world." 

Isaiah,  cheering  up  his  countrymen  writhing 
under  the  oppressor's  heel,  thus  fills  the  Jewish 
sorrowing  soul  with  hope : 

"  The  sons  of  strangers  shall  build  up  thy  walls, 
and  their  kings  shall  be  servants  unto  thee. 

"  The  nation  and  kingdom  that  will  not  be  enslaved 
by  thee  shall  perish,  yea,  those  nations  shall  be  ut- 
terly laid  waste.  .  .   . 

"  The  sons  of  them  that  afflicted  thee  shall  kneel 
down  before  thee,  and  all  they  that  despised  thee  shall 
bow  themselves  down  at  the  soles  of  thy  feet.  .  .  . 


MESSIAH  TO  BE  A  WAR  LORD      15 

"  Thy  people  shall  inherit  the  earth  forever. 

"  The  time  is  coming  to  gather  all  nations  and 
tongues  that  they  may  come  and  see  thy  glory." 

All  this  shall  come  in  fulfillment  of  the  Cove- 
nant. The  Jews  shall  be  faithful  to  Yahweh,  and, 
in  reward  for  this  fidelity,  Yahweh  shall  give  the 
whole  world  to  the  Jews,  his  favorite  folk,  as  he 
further  promises  them  in  the  Psalms : 

"  I  will  give  thee  the  nations  for  thy  inheritance 
and  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for  thy  posses- 
sion. 

"  Thou  shalt  break  them  with  a  sceptre  of  iron ; 
thou  shalt  dash  them  to  pieces  like  a  vessel  of  clay." 

With  absolute,  abiding  faith  and  trust  in  these 
inspired  promises,  is  it  surprising  that  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora  should  believe  himself  to  be  what  the 
people  proclaimed  him,  when,  according  to  Jo- 
sephus  (Wars  IV,  9)  they  "  made  joyful  acclama- 
tions to  him  as  their  Savior  and  Preserver.'' " 
Soter  and  Kedemon  are  the  words  used  by  Jo- 
sephus,  the  equivalent  of  Jeshua  and  Natsir. 

Is  it  likewise  surprising  that,  considering  the 
success  he  had  attained,  and  his  knowledge  of  the 
meaning  of  his  name,  he  should  believe  himself  to 
be  the  one  bespoken  of  the  prophets  Ezekiel  and 
Daniel,  and  the  one  actually  so  nominated  in  the 
Aramaic  version  of  Daniel  7:  13.?  ^ 

1  For  an  answer  to  this  question  read  Rev.  13:7.  Could 
he  not  also  see  his  very  name  in  the  Book  of  the  Prophet 


16  SIMON,  SON  OF  MAN 

"  And  I  saw  in  the  night  visions,  and  behold 
Shimiah  Bar  Gi'ora  came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven, 
and  came  to  the  Ancient  of  Days,  and  they  presented 
him  before  him. 

"  And  there  was  given  him  power  and  glory,  and  a 
Kingdom,  that  all  peoples,  nations  and  languages 
should  serve  him:  his  Dominion  is  an  everlasting 
Dominion  which  shall  not  pass  away,  and  his  kingdom 
is  one  which  shall  never  be  destroyed." 

He,  no  doubt,  could  hear  his  own  name, 
"  Gi'ora,"  re-echoing  like  the  sound  of  a  Bath- 
Kol  in  the  synonym  in  the  words  "  Power  "  and 
"  Dominion,"  and  again,  "  everlasting  Dominion." 

"  The  Kingdom  and  the  power  and  the  glory  " 
—  the  very  words  preserved  for  us  in  the  final 
clause,  or  "  doxology,"  of  the  petition  we  are 
wont  to  call  "  the  Lord's  Prayer,"  which  con- 
cludes with  the  sentence,  "  For  thine  is  the  king- 
dom, Gi'ora,  and  the  glory." 

It  was,  no  doubt,  the  same  prophetic  vision  he 

had  in  view,  the  establishment  of  an  everlasting 

dynasty,   when    addressing   his    "  first-born   son " 

(Peter   rehem,   in   Hebrew)    namely   Eleazar,   his 

lieutenant-general  in  the  defense  of  the  Holy  City, 

Zachariah  (6:12):  "Behold  the  Man  [Gibhora,  in  Ara- 
maic] whose  name  is  tSimoh."  This  last  word  is  variously 
translated:  "orient,"  in  the  Douay  and  the  Septuagint; 
"branch,"  in  the  King  James  version;  "sprout,"  in 
Leeser's  Jewish  English  and  in  the  Dutch  version ;  "  scion," 
in  the  Italian;  "shoot,"  in  the  French  and  in  the  new 
Jewish  translation  into  English;  in  all  of  which  is  the  cen- 
tral idea  "  to  spring  up,"  "  to  grow,"  or  "  to  increase  in 
strength,"  the  root  idea  of  the  Aramaic  giber,  from  which 
Gibhora  is  derived. 


MESSIAH  TO  BE  A  WAR  LORD      IT 

he  said,  with  permissible  play  upon  the  name  El- 
eazar  {ho  Petros  or  "  The  Peter  "  of  the  Gospels), 
"  Elu  ha  Zur  ['  Behold  the  Rock ']  and  Ele  ha 
Zur  ['  upon  this  Rock ']  I  will  build  my  house 
[or  dynasty],  and  the  gates  of  death  shall  not 
prevail  against  it."  And  only  from  such  a  con- 
ception of  the  meaning  of  "  these  rocks,"  namely 
in  Eleazar,  can  any  one  imagine  how,  as  it  is  said 
in  Matthew  3:9,"  God  can,  '  from  these  rocks  ' 
raise  up  children  to  Abraham." 

Josephus  says  that  upon  the  occasion  of  his 
triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem,  after  his  victor- 
ious campaign  in  Kadesh,  Bar  Gi'ora, —  that  is, 
the  Son  of  Man, —  was  proclaimed  "  King  of  the 
Jews  "  by  a  rejoicing  and  enthusiastic  people. 
Many  passages  in  the  Gospels,  likewise,  indicate 
the  same  thing.  Indeed,  according  to  the  account 
in  John,  he  did  not  deny  the  charge  when  cross- 
examined  by  the  Praelatus,  that  he  coveted  the 
crown.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  in  the 
Gospels  his  kingdom  is  called  the  "  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  "  and  the  "  Kingdom  of  God,"  it  is  very 
certain  the  kingdom  which  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the 
Son  of  Man,  had  in  view  possessed  positive  geo- 
graphical boundaries.  The  phrase  "  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  "  or,  more  correctly,  "  the  king- 
dom of  the  heavens  "  occurs  about  two  dozen  times 
in  the  Matthew,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  in  the 
Matthew  only  is  it  to  be  found ;  for,  the  phrase 
was  apparently  altered  into  "  the  kingdom  of 
God  "  in  the  other  Evangelists.     This  unanimity 


18  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

of  the  other  Gospels  would  indicate  a  definite  pur- 
pose in  shunning  the  phrase  so  frequently  found 
in  the  Matthew.  Now,  the  word  for  "  heavens  " 
in  Aramaic  is  Shimain.  This  word  is  easily  al- 
tered from  Shimaon,  the  Hebrew  for  "  Simon," 
as  the  final  vowel,  lod  —  (i)  in  the  one  is  made 
exactly  like  the  final  vowel  Vav  (o)  in  the  other, 
except  that  the  former  is  written  somewhat 
shorter.^ 

A  careless,  rapid,  or  designing  copyist  might 
easily  make  a  "  lod  "  instead  of  the  longer  letter. 
It  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  how  the  concrete 
"  Kingdom  of  Simon "  faded  into  the  shadowy 
"  kingdom  of  heavens,"  which  became  more  spirit- 
ualized still  when  the  all-conquering  Roman  arms 
placed  the  realization  of  a  political  kingdom 
utterly  beyond  any  earthly  hope.  The  slogan, 
"  Wake  up !  the  kingdom  of  Simon  has  come !  " 
faded  out  into  "  Repent !  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  at  hand." 

1  The  Talmud,  Dr.  Ginsburg  says,  cautioned  the  scribes 
against  confounding  the  lod  and  the  Vav,  the  Beth  and 
the  Kaph,  the  Aliph  and  the  Ayin. 


IV 

THE   UNRELENTING  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA 

"  As  the  streams  lose  themselves  in  the  mightier  ocean, 
so  the  history  of  the  peoples  once  distributed  along  the 
Mediterranean  shores  is  absorbed  in  that  of  the  mighty 
Mistress  of  the  World." —  Niebuhr. 

The  Jewish  patriots,  endeavoring  to  re-estab- 
lish their  ancient  kingdom,  sought  to  throw  off 
the  Roman  yoke  which  yearly  had  become  more 
galling  since  Pompey's  general,  Scaurus,  in  the 
year  64  before  the  Christian  era,  was  invited  into 
Judea  by  Hyrcanus  II  to  help  him  suppress  his 
younger  brother,  Aristobulus. 

This  Hyrcanus  was  the  son  of  Alexander  Jan- 
nffius,  grandson  of  John  Hyrcanus,  and  the  great 
grandson  of  Simon  Maccabeus,  whose  brother 
Judas  resurrected  the  Jewish  state  165  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era.  From  the  days  of  Judas 
Maccabeus  to  the  time  of  Hyrcanus  the  Romans 
had  maintained  an  entente  cordiale  with  the  Jew- 
ish state,  but  did  not  attempt  to  interfere  in  the 
political  affairs  of  the  nation  until  Hyrcanus  II 
invited  them  in. 

The  Romans  accepted  the  invitation,  besieged 
Macherus,  to  which  Aristobulus  had  fled,  and  de- 
livered Judea  over  to  Hyrcanus, —  Pompey  tak- 

19 


20  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

ing  Aristobulus  with  him  to  grace  his  triumph  in 
Rome.  Hyrcanus  was  confirmed  in  the  supreme 
dignity  by  JuHus  Caesar. 

While  Hyrcanus  was  nominally  king,  he  was  in 
reality  hardly  more  than  a  mask  for  Antipater, 
the  Idumean,  his  chief  adviser.  Antipas,  father 
of  Antipater,  had  been  made  governor  of  Idumea 
by  Alexander  Jannaeus,  father  of  Hyrcanus. 
The  designing  Idumean  had  Hyrcanus  appoint 
Herod,  Antipater's  own  son,  governor  of  Galilee. 
Herod  married  Mariamne,  daughter  of  Hyr- 
canus' daughter,  Alexandra,  and  of  Alexander, 
son  of  the  aforementioned  Aristobulus.  Hyr- 
canus was  deposed  by  his  kinsman  Antigonus  who 
cut  off  the  ro^^al  high  priest's  ears,  and  thus  le- 
gally incapacitated  him  from  holding  the  regal 
office.  Herod,  who  was  connected  by  his  marriage 
with  Mariamne  with  both  branches  of  the  Has- 
monean  or  Maccabean  family,  was  confirmed  in 
the  kingship  by  both  Augustus  and  Anthony. 

Herod  killed  off  all  the  Hasmonean  aspirants 
to  the  Judean  throne.  He  caused  to  be  drowned 
the  younger  Aristobulus,  the  grandson  and  heir  of 
both  H3^rcanus  and  Aristobulus.  He  killed  his 
own  brother,  Joseph,  out  of  jealousy,  for  he  be- 
lieved him  to  be  in  love  with  Mariamne.  Later, 
he  killed  his  wife,  Mariamne,  and  her  mother, 
Alexandra,  daughter  of  Hyrcanus,  and  his  own 
two  sons  by  Mariamne,  Alexander  and  Aristo- 
bulus, and  his  favorite  son  Antipater.  It  is 
doubtless  from  the  fact  that  he  murdered  aU  the 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  21 

heirs  of  the  Jewish  royal  line,  the  children  of  the 
Maccabees,  that  the  story  of  Herod's  slaughter 
of  the  children  has  sprung  up  as  we  find  it  re- 
corded alone  in  Matthew  2. 

In  his  will  Herod  left  his  kingdom  to  his  two 
sons  Archelaus  and  Antipas.  To  Archelaus  he 
left  Judea,  Idumea  and  Samaria.  He  gave  to 
Antipas    Galilee    and   Perea, 

Archelaus  reigned  nine  years  as  king  of  Judea, 
Samaria  and  Idumea,  but  with  such  cruelty  and 
injustice  that  he  shocked  even  the  Romans;  Au- 
gustus banished  him  to  Gaul,  and  Judea  became 
a  Roman  province. 

Thus  the  Roman,  like  the  camel  in  the  fable 
of  the  Arab's  tent,  after  he  had  put  his  head  into 
the  government  of  Judea,  soon  crowded  out  the 
native  rulers,  and  took  over  the  government  of 
the  country  for  himself. 

The  Judean  accepted  the  situation  much  as 
any  other  man  does  who  wakes  up  and  finds  a 
burglar  in  his  house ;  or,  rather  as  a  man  does 
who  finds  that  the  guest  whom  he  had  invited 
into  his  home  forcibly  insists  upon  having  the  key 
to  the  wine  cellar  and  the  combination  of  the  safe, 
where  the  family  plate  is  kept.  As  the  right  of 
conquest  can  never  rise  any  higher  than  the  right 
of  the  robber,  the  Jews  with  any  spirit  in  their 
characters  resented  with  all  their  souls  the  in- 
trusion of  the  Romans.  The  galling  thought  of 
paying  tribute  to  the  conqueror,  the  idea  of  the 
house-owner  being  forced  to  pay  rent  to  the  bur- 


22  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

glar  for  the  privilege  of  residing  upon  his  own 
premises,  raised  in  6  or  7  C.  E.  the  revolt  of 
Judas  the  Galilean,  otherwise,  the  Gaulonite. 
To  Judas  there  was  no  question  as  to  whether  he 
should  or  should  not  pay  tribute  to  Caesar;  nor 
was  there  in  the  mind  of  any  other  honest  Jew, 
not  even  in  the  mind  of  him  who  later  replied  with 
Hibernian  indirection,  not  to  say  adroitness, 
"  Render  to  Ca?sar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's." 

Therefore,  upon  the  banishment  of  Archelaus, 
when  Quirinius,  in  6  C.  E.,  undertook  a  cen- 
sus of  Judea  for  the  pupose  of  levying  a  tribute 
imposed  by  Rome,  not  a  tax  according  to  Jewish 
law,  the  great  mass  of  the  common  people  of 
Judea  uttered  a  murmur  of  disapproval.  This 
murmur  became  articulate  in  Judas,  the  Galilean, 
who  organized  the  Zelotes,  or  Zealots,  (also  called 
after  Judas,  "  Galileans  ")  who  were  zealous  for 
and  jealous  of  their  right  to  national  individu- 
ality, and  who  held,  even  as  some  men  to  this  day 
hold,  that  all  means  are  justifiable  when  employed 
to  drive  the  robber  from  their  home.  The  fol- 
lowers of  Judas  were  suppressed  with  great 
cruelty  and  violence,  and  Judas  himself,  accord- 
ing to  the  Acts,  ignominiously  executed. 

Pontius  Pilate,  who  was  procurator  of  Judea 
from  27  to  37  C.  E.,  rode  rudely  and  Roman-like 
over  the  most  sensitive  religious  feelings  of  the 
Jews.  To  insult  his  subjects  he  brought  the 
Roman  legions  with  graven  images  on  their  en- 
signs into  the  Holy  City.     This  cut  like  a  knife 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  23 

into  the  hearts  of  the  Jews.  He  seized  the  temple 
treasure  to  build  with  it  —  he  said  —  an  aque- 
duct into  Jerusalem.  This  robbery  created  a 
vast  indignation  meeting  in  the  city.  Pilate  sent 
soldiers  in  disguise,  with  daggers  concealed  un- 
der their  garments  and,  at  a  given  signal,  the 
soldier-murderers  fell  upon  the  assemblage  and 
slaughtered  the  defenseless  men.  Could  the  Zea- 
lots be  blamed  if  they  learned  only  too  well  this 
lesson  which  Roman  hands  had  taught  them,  who 
reasoned  that  if  the  burglar  might  use  this  sort 
of  violence  on  the  owner  of  the  house,  what  might 
the  owner  of  the  house  be  permitted  to  do  to  the 
burglar. P  The  butcheries  by  Pilate  among  the 
Samaritans,  however,  worked  his  undoing,  for  he 
was  ordered  back  to  Rome  for  slaughtering  a 
band  of  defenseless  religious  enthusiasts. 

Forty  years  after  Judas'  uprising  a  similar  re- 
volt under  Theudas  was  suppressed  by  Fadus 
with  Roman  rigor  and  cruelty.  The  successor 
of  Fadus,  an  apostate  Jew,  Tiberius  Alexander,  a 
nephew  of  Philo  the  Philosopher,  according  to 
Josephus,  crucified  the  two  patriot  sons  of  Judas, 
Jacob  and  Simon. 

The  insolence  of  the  Roman  intruder  grew  more 
intolerable  year  by  year.  The  impudence  of  the 
Roman  emperors  bordered  on  insanity.  Each 
plundering  profligate  was  mad  enough  to  think 
himself  a  god.  Caius  ordered  his  own  statue  to  be 
set  up  as  an  idol  for  worship  in  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  a  place  where  the  mere  exhibition  of  a 


M  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

graven  image  was  a  profanation  and  an  abomi- 
nation to  the  religious  feelings  of  the  Jews.  The 
tyranny  of  the  intruder,  his  egregious  egotism, 
his  cruelty  to  the  conquered,  had  become  utterly 
unbearable  and  drove  the  most  patient  and  peace- 
able, even  the  most  pusillanimous,  into  open  re- 
volt. His  very  coinage,  bearing  the  image  and 
superscription  of  the  reigning  Csesar,  constantly 
reminded  the  Jew  of  his  captivity. 

Florus,  the  Roman  Procurator,  demanded 
seventeen  talents  of  the  temple  treasure  at  the 
very  time  when  a  race  riot  was  raging  in  Caesarea 
between  Jews  and  non-Jews.  The  people  of  Jeru- 
salem blocked  the  way  to  the  temple,  and  the 
brutal  intruder  slaughtered  3,600  of  them  by  the 
sword,  trampled  them  down  under  horses  or  sum- 
marily crucified  them  without  even  the  farce  of  a 
trial.  The  people  from  the  towers  and  from  the 
top  of  the  Holy  House  beat  the  Roman  brigands 
back  into  their  quarters,  and  these  later  evacu- 
ated the  city. 

In  a  formal  set  speech,  Agrippa  II  endeavored 
to  dissuade  the  Jews  from  their  purpose  to  revolt, 
and  urged  them  to  bear  with  patience  and  sub- 
mission their  present  evils,  rather  than  incur  the 
hazard  of  greater.  The  time,  he  told  them,  was 
past  for  regaining  their  liberties,  and  the  only 
thing  which  could  be  done  was  to  render  their 
slavery  the  most  tolerable.  But  the  rioters  in- 
sisted that  the  king  send  a  deputation  to  Rome, 
to  lay  their  grievances  before  the  emperor,  and 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  25 

obtain  the  recall  of  Florus  (Josephus  Wars  II, 
16,  3).  In  this  he  accommodated  them  by  send- 
ing two  of  his  kinsmen,  who  were  brothers,  and 
with  them  the  commander  of  his  forces,  to  Cestius. 
One  of  the  kinsmen  (Jos.  Antiq.  XX,  9, 4 ; 
Wars  II,  17,  4;  Rom.  16:  11)  was  Saul,  who,  upon 
his  own  volition  and  initiative,  suggested  that  Ces- 
tius send  him  to  make  his  appeal  to  Csesar  (Acts 
25:  11-12)  Nero  at  Achia  in  favor  of  Cestius  as 
well  as  against  Florus   (Jos.  Wars  II,  20,1). 

A  patriot  who  bore  the  name,  or  at  least  the 
designation,  of  Manahem,  or  "  Comforter,"  or 
"  Paraclete,"  a  son  of  Judas  the  Galilean,  who, 
like  his  illustrious  father,  revolted  against  paying 
tribute  to  Casar,  or  to  any  other  mortal  man, 
marched  in  from  Massada,  where  he  had  broken 
into  the  armory  of  Herod  and  supplied  his  men 
with  arms.  "  He  was  received  into  Jerusalem  as 
a  king,"  sa^'s  Josephus.  Manahem's  head  was 
turned  by  his  success,  and,  becoming  an  insuffer- 
able tyrant,  he  was  resisted  by  Eleazar,  banished 
to  Ophla  (which  in  Hebrew  means  "  conceal- 
ment"),  and  —  it  is  said  —  killed.  The  Roman 
garrisons  in  certain  of  the  towers  were  driven  out 
and  destroyed.  Cestius  Gallus,  prefect  of  Syria, 
advanced  toward  Jerusalem  with  23,000  trained 
Roman  soldiers.  He  was  beaten  by  Eleazar,  who 
inflicted  upon  him  a  loss  of  5,300  foot  and  380 
horse,  besides  leaving  behind  his  cauldrons  and 
engines  of  war.  It  is  in  connection  with  this 
crushing  defeat  of  Cestius  that  we  find  Simon  Bar 


26  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Gi'ora  first  mentioned  in  Josephus'  history.  The 
Jewish  army  under  Eleazar  had  been  driven  back 
into  Jerusalem.  But  the  day  was  saved  by  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora,  who  "  fell  upon  the  rear  of  the  Ro- 
mans as  they  were  ascending  Bethoron,  put  the 
hindmost  of  the  army  into  disorder,  carried  off 
many  of  the  beasts  that  bore  the  weapons  of  war 
and  led  them  into  the  City  of  Jerusalem." 

This  success  of  Simon  and  Eleazar  brought 
great  accessions  of  the  timid  and  wavering  to  the 
patriots'  cause.  A  general  assembly  of  Jewish 
leaders  was  called  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  to 
choose  commanders  and  to  plan  the  war  of  lib- 
eration so  successfully  and  auspiciously  begun. 
"  Jesus,  the  son  of  Sapphias,"  or  Shapat,  the 
same  as  Jehoshapat,  or  Josaphat,  was  sent  to  or- 
ganize Idumea,  and  Eleazar,  son  of  Simon,  was 
sent  with  him.  Joseph,  son  of  Simon,  was  sent 
to  Jericho,  John  the  Essene  to  Thamma,  and  Jos- 
eph Bara  Matthias  was  given  the  most  important 
post  of  all, —  Upper  and  Lower  Galilee.  This 
last  is  the  Joseph  known  to  history  as  Flavins 
Josephus,  the  historian  of  the  period.  John,  the 
Levite,  later  known  as  one  of  the  Boanerges,  or 
Beniherges,  was  given  the  city  of  Gischala. 

Josephus,  according  to  his  own  account,  col- 
lected an  army  of  60,000  foot,  4,500  mercenaries 
or  armed  police,  and  a  body  guard  of  600  picked 
men.  He  set  to  work  at  once  to  fortify  Sep- 
phoris,  Tiberias,  Tarichea,  Jotapata  and  Ga- 
mala.     It  became  apparent  to  Jesus,  whom  Jo- 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  27 

sephus  deprecatingly  calls  "  a  leader  of  a  se- 
ditious multitude  of  fishermen  and  poor  people  " 
(Vita.  12),  yet,  who  somehow  had  been  made  gov- 
ernor by  the  people  — "  spake  as  one  having  au- 
thority " —  in  Tiberias,  and  to  John,  that  the 
purpose  of  Josephus  was  to  occupy  and  fortify 
these  towns  not  for  the  Jews,  but  for  the  Romans. 
Justus  of  Tiberias,  the  historian,  was  of  the  same 
opinion  as  John  and  Jesus.  That  their  judg- 
ment was  correct  is  confirmed  by  Josephus  in  his 
history  of  the  war.  John,  Jesus  and  Justus  arose 
against  Josephus,  but  the  slippery  trickster  man- 
aged to  recapture  the  four  cities  of  Sepphoris, 
Tiberias,  Gamala  and  Gischala  that  had  revolted 
against  him,  and  these  he  succeeded  in  holding  un- 
til the  arrival  of  the  great  Roman  army. 

The  defeat  of  Cestius,  which  was  announced  to 
Nero  by  Saul,  awoke  the  Romans  to  a  realization 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  revolution.  Nero  sent 
Vespasian,  the  ablest  general  in  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, against  the  Jews.  Vespasian  ordered  his  son 
Titus  to  Alexandria  to  bring  to  Palestine  the  le- 
gions stationed  there. 

Vespasian  landed  at  Antioch  in  the  spring  of 
67  C.  E.  with  a  great  army  of  seasoned  veterans 
of  many  wars.  The  sight  of  Vespasian's  vast 
army  almost  frightened  the  wits  out  of  the  brave 
Josephus  —  if  we  are  to  believe  Josephus  him- 
self. His  untrained  soldiers,  seeing  their  com- 
mander so  seemingly  scared,  fled  from  fright  be- 
fore the  Romans.     Josephus  escaped  to  the  city 


28  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

of  Tiberias  while  the  Romans  marched  on  to  Ga- 
dara  where  they  mercilessly  slaughtered  the  na- 
tives whom  Josephus  had  abandoned  to  their 
butchers.  From  Tiberias  Josephus  again  fled  to 
Jotapata.  The  Jews  went  out  to  meet  him  and 
drove  the  Romans  headlong  down  the  hill.  The 
Romans  set  to  work  erecting  military  towers  be- 
side the  city's  walls  from  which  they  threw  jave- 
lins, hot  stones  and  blazing  arrows.  The  Jews 
raised  the  city  walls  higher.  Vespasian  decided 
to  discontinue  the  assault  and  to  wait  and  starve 
out  the  occupants.  The  Jews  were  running  short 
of  water.  The  crafty  but  craven  Josephus  ad- 
vised his  fellow  commanders  to  run  away  from  the 
besieged  city  and  to  leave  the  city  to  its  fate  and 
to  the  mercy  of  the  merciless  Romans.  Not  one 
of  them  would  listen  to  his  traitorous  advice.  The 
battle  raged  for  many  days.  The  Jews  sallied 
forth  and  set  fire  to  the  engines,  wattles  and  pali- 
sades of  the  Romans.  This  interfered  with  the 
progress  of  the  assault,  but  after  a  rest  the  rams 
began  again  hammering  the  walls  until,  at  length, 
they  made  a  breach.  As  the  Romans  came  pour- 
ing into  the  breach,  the  Jews  began  pouring  down 
upon  them  liquid  flaming  fire  which  rolled  back 
the  invaders  writhing  in  horrible  agonies.  When 
the  Romans  attempted  to  re-enter  the  breach,  the 
Jews  poured  down  a  hot  preparation  that  made 
the  stones  so  slippery  that  the  invaders  fell  and 
rolled  against  one  another  down  to  the  ground. 
For  forty-seven  days  the  attack  was  kept  up. 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  29 

At  length  a  "  deserter,"  not  improbably  a 
"  trusty  "  emissary  of  the  doe-hearted  Josephus, 
escaped  to  the  Roman  camp,  and  told  Vespasian 
how  the  city  might  be  taken.  A  night  attack  was 
made,  and,  according  to  Josephus,  the  sentries 
wore  found  asleep  at  their  posts.  It  is  more  prob- 
able that  Josephus  had  purposely  neglected  to 
have  the  walls  properly  guarded.  The  Romans 
streamed  into  the  city  and  cruelly  cut  down  all 
who  came  in  their  way.  Forty  thousand  met  the 
patriot's  fate  during  the  siege.  Josephus  crawled 
into  an  abandoned  cistern.  Here  he  says  he  was 
found  out,  but  he  was  promised  his  life  if  he 
would  surrender  to  the  Romans.  He  was  quite 
willing  to  surrender,  but  his  companions  advised 
him  it  were  better  to  die  as  a  general  to  the  Jews 
than  as  a  renegade  to  the  Romans.  As  each  of 
his  companions  carried  a  sharp  sword,  he  quickly 
saw  the  point  of  their  argument.  Next  he  began 
to  preach  to  them,  for  preaching  was  his  pro- 
fession and  his  forte.  The  brave  fellows  sug- 
gested that  all  had  better  die  by  their  own  hands 
than  by  the  Romans'.  The  wily  Josephus 
preached  them  a  sermon  on  the  sinfulness  of  sui- 
cide,—  the  very  opposite  of  a  theme  upon  which 
he  later  discoursed  to  Vespasian.  He  persuaded 
them  of  the  nobleness  of  dying  by  each  other's 
hands  and  he  convinced  them  that  they  should 
draw  lots  on  the  order  of  their  going.  He  evi- 
dently manipulated  the  lottery  by  his  skill  at 
sleight-of-hand,    which    he    calls    "  God's    provi- 


30  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

dence,"  and,  after  thirty-eight  of  the  forty  in  the 
cistern  had  been  killed,  Josephus  persuaded  his 
lone  companion  that  the  drawing  of  lots  should 
cease  as  he  had  conscientious  scruples  against  the 
shedding  of  human  blood  with  his  own  hands. 
His  companion  was  a  willing  convert,  and  Jose- 
phus came  forth. 

He  was  taken  before  Vespasian.  Here  his  won- 
derful talent  as  a  charlatan  asserted  itself.  En- 
tering the  presence  of  the  Roman  general,  he  as- 
sumed the  character  of  an  ancient  Hebrew 
prophet. 

"  O  Vespasian,"  he  solemnly  began ;  *'  think  not 
that  thou  hast  taken  Josephus  captive ;  it  is  God 
who  has  sent  him  to  thee  with  tidings  of  great  joy. 
Were  it  not  so,  dost  thou  think  I  know  not  how, 
under  our  law,  it  becomes  a  Jewish  general  to 
die?  Thou  wilt  send  me  to  Nero?  And  for  what 
end?  I  will  tell  thee,  Vespasian,  thou  art  Caesar 
and  Emperor  —  thou  and  thy  son !  Thou  shalt 
rule  all  lands  and  seas  and  all  mankind !  Bind  me 
and  keep  me  for  condign  punishment  if  thou 
findest  that  I  lie !  " 

Vespasian,  with  egregious  Roman  pride  and 
vanity,  was  flattered  beyond  bounds  by  this  speech 
of  the  crafty  mountebank.  The  Sibyl  had  shown 
the  Roman  the  Semitic  genius  for  prophecy. 
Vespasian  was  completely  taken  in  by  this  Israel- 
ite in  whom  there  was  much  guile.  Yet,  it  took 
no  special  prophetic  talent  to  foretell,  in  an  age 
when  the  army  named  the  Imperator,  or  Emperor 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  81 

(i.  e.  Commander),  that  the  greatest  conquering 
general  of  Rome  would  necessarily  become  Im- 
perator  or  Commander-in-chief  of  all  the  Roman 
arms  and,  therefore,  head  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

It  is  also  worthy  of  note  that  the  first  cities  at- 
tacked by  the  Romans  were  those  within  the  juris- 
diction of  Josephus,  all  of  which  he  boasts  of  hav- 
ing strongly  fortified,  yet  each  of  which  except 
Jotapata  was  taken  with  such  facility  by  the 
Romans.  And  we  have  seen  that  it  was  not  the 
fault  of  Josephus  that  Jotapata  held  out  for 
forty-seven  days.  "  His  mind,"  says  his  biog- 
rapher, Bentwich,  "  was  from  the  beginning  of  the 
struggle  subjugated  to  Rome,  but,  unhappily,  he 
accepted  the  most  responsible  post  in  the  national 
defense  and  betrayed  it." 

After  the  sack  of  Jotapata,  Vespasian  sent 
Valerian  with  fifty  horse  to  Tiberias  to  demand  its 
surrender.  He  was  answered  by  the  governor  of 
Tiberias,  Jesus,  who  made  a  sudden  sally  and  took 
the  horses  away  from  the  Romans,  while  Valerian 
and  five  others  fled  afoot  back  to  his  master. 
Vespasian,  with  true  Roman  rigor,  ordered  the 
city  to  be  plundered,  but,  at  the  request  of 
Agrippa,  he  revoked  his  order. 

Jesus  and  the  other  insurgents  fled  to  Tarichea. 
There  they  made  a  stand  and  drove  off  the  Ro- 
mans engaged  in  erecting  a  military  tower.  Titus 
made  a  cavalry  dash  with  600  horse.  Trajan 
followed  with  400  horse  and  Silo  with  2,000  arch- 
ers.    The  Jews  made  a  brave  resistance,  but  be- 


32  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

ing  undisciplined  as  compared  with  the  Romans, 
were  ridden  down  and  slaughtered.  Some  of  the 
followers  of  Jesus  fled  over  the  country,  while 
others  entered  boats  on  the  Lake  Gennesareth. 
Titus  built  vessels  and  pursued  them.  He  be- 
strewed the  shores  with  wreckage  and  6500 
corpses.  This  event  is  recorded  in  the  Gospels 
as  the  departure  from  Capernaum,  because  of  the 
press  of  the  people  —  ochlos,  instead  of  the 
soldiery  —  lochos,  followed  by  the  "  stilling  of  the 
tempest."  '  ■      |li?jl| 

Vespasian  reduced  the  city  to  submission  and 
guaranteed  all  the  surrendered  their  lives.  He 
immediately  violated  his  treaty.  He  ordered  all 
the  fugitives  from  Gadara  and  other  cities  that 
were  in  Tarichea  at  the  time  of  the  surrender  to 
go  forth  on  a  road  that  led  to  Tiberias,  and  he 
murdered  them  in  their  tracks.  He  killed  1,200 
defenseless  old  men.  He  sent  6,000  of  the  young- 
est and  strongest  to  Nero,  and  sold  30,400  as 
slaves.  It  was  the  most  barbarous  act  ever  com- 
mitted by  that  heartless  intruding  foreigner  — 
an  immortal  exemplar  of  fides  Romana. 

Gamala  fell  next,  but  only  after  a  month's  ter- 
rible resistance.  The  Roman  sense  of  justice 
spared  no  living  thing.  Only  two  women  escaped, 
and  these  because  they  had  hidden  themselves  so 
well  they  could  not  be  found  by  the  soldiers.  Fol- 
lowing a  siege  at  Gadara,  the  Romans  under  Plac- 
idus    drove    about    2,200    of   the   Jewish    cavalry 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  33 

into  the  flooded  outlet  of  the  sea  of  Galilee.  This 
defeat  is  recorded  in  the  Gospels  as  a  Jewish  vic- 
tory, or  "  permission,"  and  a  play  is  there  made 
on  the  Hebrew  word  for  "  horse  " —  sus,  which 
collection  of  letters  in  Latin  signifies  "  swine.'* 

Gischala  was  next  approached.  It  was  de- 
fended by  Jolin,  a  man  of  much  versatility,  for 
even  Josephus  says  he  was  "  of  a  temper  that 
could  put  on  various  shapes  " ;  he  was  "  cunning  " 
and  "  sagacious  in  bringing  about  what  he  had 
wished."  Terrified  by  the  grim  f  rightfulness 
shown  by  the  Romans  at  Tarichea,  Gadara  and 
Gamala,  the  inhabitants  pressed  John  to  parley 
for  a  surrender.  John  did  so,  but  induced  Titus 
to  respect  the  Sabbath  and  to  refrain  from  mili- 
tary operations.  Meanwhile,  John  slipped  away 
to  Jerusalem,  followed  by  6,000  women  and  chil- 
dren. The  remaining  inhabitants  opened  the 
gates  of  the  city  to  Titus.  The  Romans  showed 
their  unusual  temper  by  massacring  the  6,000 
women  and  children  who  had  gone  forth  with 
John's  army,  but  who  returned  with  a  vain  trust 
in  Roman  refinement  and  moderation. 

Upon  his  arrival  in  Jerusalem,  John  disposed 
his  men  for  the  protection  of  the  temple.  It  is  in 
his  account  of  John's  entry  that  Josephus  seeks 
to  explain  John's  nick-name,  evidently  the  title 
of  Boanerges,  or  Benherges,  but  whose  purpose 
some  clever  text-tinker  has  thwarted,  as  we  shall 
show.     Josephus  has  hardly  a  single  good  word 


34  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

to  say  of  either  John,  Eleazar,  or  Simon  Bar 
Gi'ora  who  commanded  the  Jewish  forces  during 
the  long  siege  of  Jerusalem. 

Joseph  Bara  Matthias,  otherwise  Josephus,  as 
might  be  expected  from  such  a  traitor  or  apostate, 
does  all  he  can  to  whitewash  the  black  record  of 
the  sanguinary  Romans,  as  he  displays  equal  zeal 
in  besmirching  the  poor,  distracted,  disorganized, 
but  brave  and  passionately  patriotic  Jews  who 
fought  with  desperation  for  their  altars  and  their 
firesides,  for  the  sanctity  of  their  homes  and  the 
Holy  of  Holies  of  the  God  of  their  fathers. 

According  to  Josephus,  all  the  Romans  were 
noble  and  brave,  wliile  all  the  Jews,  excepting 
himself,  were  rapacious  and  cruel  cowards. 
While  the  Roman  intruders  had  no  higher  ethical 
support  for  their  invasion  than  has  the  burglar, 
or,  worse  yet,  than  the  daylight  robber,  it  is  for 
the  patriot  Jew,  who  had  the  heroic  heart  to  die 
in  his  country's  cause,  that  Josephus  has  no  bet- 
ter name  than  lestes,  that  is,  "  brigand,"  or  "  rob- 
ber." Commenting  upon  this  characteristic  of 
Josephus,  Dean  Milman  says :  "  It  may  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Spanish  guerillas,  w^ho  were  called 
patriots  in  London,  were  brigands  in  Paris." 
Those  who  professed  the  principles  put  forth  by 
the  great  democratic  leader,  Judas  the  Galilean, 
who  were  known  both  as  Galileans  and  as  Zelotes 
(Qannhn),  or  zealots,  by  the  patriotic  party, 
were  called  by  their  murderous  Latin  oppressors 
Sicarii,    which   is    the    ordinary   Latin   word   for 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  35 

"  assassins."  Josephus,  who  was  comparatively 
ignorant  of  Latin,  seems  not  to  have  known  that 
sicarius  is  an  old  Latin  word,  frequently  used  by 
Cicero,  who  died  forty-three  years  before  the 
Christian  era,  and  even  forty  years  earlier  still 
we  find  the  word  in  the  Cornelian  law,  De  Sicariis 
et  Veneficiis.  Josephus  would  have  his  readers 
believe  the  word  was  coined  first  in  Judea  to  fit  the 
insurgent  Jews ;  for,  from  its  etymology,  he  in- 
vents the  calumny  against  the  Zelotes  that  they 
were  called  Sicarii  because  they  carried  sicae,  or 
curved  daggers,  under  their  garments  after  the 
manner  of  Pontius  Pilate's  plain-clothes  men. 
The  far-reaching  effects  of  this  envenomed  ety- 
mology of  Josephus  extends  down  even  to  the 
Standard  Dictionary,  in  which  sicarius  is  erron- 
eously defined  as  "  one  of  a  sect  of  assassins  in- 
festing Palestine  in  the  1st  century."  According 
to  Roman  military  ethics  a  patriot  Jew,  who 
killed  a  Roman  invader  as  a  public  enemy,  was  an 
assassin,  but  it  was  "  justice  "  for  a  Roman  to 
kill  a  Jew.  Like  the  word  "  Quaker,"  or 
"  Shaker,"  the  term  Sicarii,  as  applied  to  the 
Zelotes,  lost  its  opprobrium  by  frequent  repeti- 
tion, for  in  Judea  it  came  eventually  to  mean  no 
more  than  "  insurgent."  Nevertheless,  for  a  long 
time  the  epithet  sicarius,  or  sicar,  was  naturally 
received  with  resentment.  We  read,  accordingly, 
in  Matthew  5 :  22,  "  Whosoever  shall  say  to  a 
brother,  raca,  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  Council 
(Sunadrion) ,"  that  is  to  say,  of  the  Sanhedrin. 


36  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Now,  raca  is  not  a  word  which  can  be  found  in 
any  Semitic  dictionary.  The  attempt  to  identify 
the  word  with  the  Aramaic  rikah,  which  means 
"  vain,"  or  "  empty,"  is  far-fetched.  It  is  ab- 
surd to  think  that  a  body  of  serious  public  men 
would  take  official  cognizance  of  such  an  innocu- 
ous epithet. 

Some  of  the  New  Testament  manuscripts,  the 
Ethiopic  and  those  on  which  it  was  based,  how- 
ever, read  rakis,  instead  of  raka,  evidently  the 
true  reading,  for  rakis  is  but  the  word  sikar,  with 
the  spelling  reversed.  One  can  readily  under- 
stand how  the  Sanhedrin  would  take  cognizance 
of  the  accusation  that  a  certain  citizen  was  a 
sikar,  or  a  sicarius.  Those  who  were  even  less 
familiar  with  the  Latin  than  was  Josephus  evi- 
dently understood  the  epithet  sikar  as  a  word  in 
their  own  language.  Sikar  or  Shikar  in  Aramaic 
signifies  "  drunken,"  and  we  learn  from  Matthew 
11:19,  and  Luke  7 :  34,  that  the  Son  of  Man  was 
criticised   for  consorting  with  "  wine-bibbers." 

Paralleling  the  raka  declaration  is  this  other  in 
the  very  same  verse:  "whosoever  shall  say  Thou 
fool,  shall  be  in  danger  of  hell  fire."  To  hang  a 
man  for  calling  another  a  fool  would  be  unthink- 
able outside  of  a  madhouse,  but  to  torture  a  per- 
son for  such  a  trifling  offence  for  the  space  of  a 
single  minute,  for  an  hour,  for  a  year,  for  a  cen- 
tury, for  a  millennium,  for  an  eternity,  would  be 
unworthy  the  maddest  demon  the  human  mind  can 
conceive.     To  believe  that  a  deity  could  be  guilty 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  37 

of  such  an  unconscionable  atrocity  is  the  direst 
blasphemy.  It  may  be  added  also  that  "  fool  " 
is  the  very  epithet  which  the  Son  of  Man,  accord- 
ing to  the  Matthew  23 :  17,  hurled  against  the 
traditionalists. 

Fortunately  for  our  sanity  we  find  the  phrase 
translated  Thou  fool,  is  in  the  Greek  text  the 
single  word,  More.  Many  commentators,  feeling 
that  the  punishment  did  not  fit  the  crime,  have 
concluded  that  More  is  not  a  Greek  word  at  all. 
They  have  sought  to  derive  it  from  the  Hebrew 
Marah,  which  means  "  rebel,"  from  the  root 
marad,  "  to  rebel."  The  use  of  the  word  "  rebel  " 
would  only  tend  to  confirm  the  military  rather 
than  the  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  Gospel. 
Yet  a  threat  of  such  a  punishment,  infinitely  out 
of  proportion  to  the  offence,  is  no  argument  in 
behalf  of  its  divine  inspiration. 

When  one  understands,  however,  what  geenna 
means,  and  the  disciplinary  effects  which  the  aena 
were  employed  to  produce,  and  that  more  is  an 
anagram  of  Rome,  he  is  in  a  state  of  mind  to  com- 
prehend what  might  happen  to  an  indiscreet  man 
who  should  foolishly  mention  the  name  of  Rome 
in  a  conciliatory  manner  among  a  crowd  of  anti- 
Roman  Zealots,  especially  if  he  should  follow  the 
word  with  a  suggestion  that  the  patriots  ought 
to  surrender  to  the  tyrannous  oppressor.  One 
can  well  imagine  the  effect  which  the  punishment 
meted  out  by  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  to  Judas  for  his 
coquetry  with  Rome,  had  in  removing  that  word 


38  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

from  the  vocabulary  of  even  the  most  war-weary 
pacifist.  We  can  also  see  without  any  difficulty 
the  obstacle  which  the  word  Rome  in  the  context 
would  make  to  the  progress  of  the  spirituahzed 
movement  among  the  proud  Roman  citizenry. 
We  can  thus  understand  why  the  word  was  so 
scrambled  to  make  it  palatable  to  a  Roman  in- 
quiring into  the  tenets  of  the  new  faith. 

Josephus  had  as  little  scruple  to  falsify  the 
facts  of  the  history  of  the  war  for  liberation  as 
he  had  to  falsify  the  history  of  the  origin  of  the 
word  sicarius.  It  is  a  matter  of  great  regret  that 
the  history  of  that  war  written  from  the  Jewish 
point  of  view  did  not  come  down  to  us  instead  of 
the  perverted  story  written  by  the  renegade  and 
canting  ex-priest,  himself  the  assassin  of  his 
fatherland,  who  cut  the  throat  of  independent 
Jewish  nationality. 

It  is  exceedingly  unfortunate  that  the  faculty 
of  analytical  criticism  appears  wanting  in  the 
Jewish  writers  who  discuss  this  period,  and  who 
accept  as  truth  the  foul  calumnies  of  that  turn- 
coat against  the  greatest  souls  of  all  their  race; 
and  that  writers  like  Graetz  and  the  contributors 
to  the  Jewish  Encyclopaedia  repeat  the  libels  of 
the  traducer  of  the  best  and  bravest  and  noblest 
of  all  the  sons  of  Israel. 

The  book  "  Contra  Apionem,"  a  defence  of  the 
Jews  against  one  Apion  and  other  Greek  calumni- 
ators, has  prevented  Jews  from  forming  a  just 
opinion  of  the  author  of  the  Book  of  the  Wars. 


THE  ROMAN  IN  JUDEA  39 

That  work,  written  in  the  closing  jea.rs  of  Jose- 
phus'  life,  when  his  literary  censors,  Vespasian 
and  Titus,  had  gone  whither  they  had  sent  un- 
timely countless  thousands  before  them,  was  the 
work  of  a  repentant  renegade  probably  trying  to 
atone  for  the  evil  he  had  wrought.  If  this  was  its 
purpose,  it  has  succeeded  in  a  large  measure,  by 
its  appeal  to  the  racial  egotism  no  less  than  to  the 
natural  sense  of  satisfaction  among  Jews  at  find- 
ing their  calumniators  confuted,  and  in  discover- 
ing a  champion  in  the  quondam  traitor  and  tra- 
ducer  of  their  people.  There  is  one  point,  how- 
ever, of  which  they  lost  sight,  viz.,  that  the  book 
"  Against  Apion  "  has  preserved  in  pickle  only  the 
prejudices  of  authors  whose  very  names,  like  the 
name  of  Apion,  would  have  been  otherwise  justly 
forgotten.  It  is  the  sarcophagus  in  which  are 
embalmed  most  of  the  evil  opinions  of  antiquity 
concerning  the  Jews. 

No  enemy  of  the  Hebrew  race,  ancient  or  mod- 
ern, has  ever  penned  such  an  indictment  against 
the  Jews  of  his  time  as  has  Josephus  in  his  "  His- 
tory of  the  Wars  of  the  Jews,"  the  spirit  of  which 
passing  out  into  the  fourth  Gospel,  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  and  the  Pauline  Epistles,  has  in- 
fected the  heart  of  every  fanatical  hater  of  the 
Hebrew  race. 


THE  WHIRLWIND  OF  KADESH 

"The  Jews  conceived  Wrath  otherwise  than  we:  they 
pronounced  it  Holy.  Accordingly,  they  contemplated  the 
sombre  majesty  of  man  at  an  elevation  that  no  European 
can  imagine.  They  fashioned  their  holy  wrathful  Jehovah 
after  their  holy,  wrathful  prophets.  Measured  up  with 
these  the  great  wrathful  characters  among  Europeans  are, 
as  it  were,  only  secondary  creatures." —  Nietzsche,  "  Mor- 
genroethe." 

While  John  and  Eleazar,  son  of  Simon,  were 
holding  the  Holy  City,  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  was 
gathering  strength  to  the  national  cause  in  the 
outlying  districts  in  Judea  and  Idumea. 

Josephus,  whose  political  apostasy  made  him 
hate  the  very  name  of  the  Liberator,  Simon  Bar 
Gi'ora,  describes  in  Wars  IV,  9,  an  expedition 
of  that  great  leader  into  Idumea.  He  says  the 
Son  of  Man  went  up  into  the  mountains  to  pray 
the  assistance  of  the  settlements  scattered  along 
the  Wilderness  of  Kadesh.  To  those  who  joined 
him  he  offered  many  advantages :  "  liberty  to 
those  in  slavery  and  rewards  to  those  who  were 
free  " —  the  men  condemned  to  labors  and  those 
heavily  laden  with  debts.  Josephus  says  the  pop- 
ulace  were   obedient   to   Bar  Gi'ora,   the   Son   of 

Man,  "  as  their  king."     John  6: 15  says  the  peo- 
40 


THE  WHIRLWIND  OF  KADESH      41 

pie  sought  to  make  him  their  king.  What  Jose- 
phus  cannot  conceal  in  his  hostile  history  of 
this  expedition  is  Gi'ora's  intense  energy,  which 
some  modern  psychologists  hold  to  be  the  very 
essence  of  genius.  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man, 
was  aflame  with  a  burning  zeal  manifesting  itself 
in  a  divine  rage  against  the  enemies  of  his  people. 
Fury  was  considered  by  the  ancients  a  divine  gift, 
and  this  impetuous  patriotism,  this  piety  for  his 
people  —  patriotism  and  piety  in  that  theocracy 
were  synonymous  —  could  be  considered  only  a 
holy  rage  or  wrath,  a  "  Roah  Kadesh."  Simon 
was  the  very  simoon  of  the  desert,  the  "  Wind  " 
or  "  Fury  of  Kadesh "  as  well  as  the  "  Roah 
Kadesh  "  or  "  Holy  Wrath,"  which  passed  into 
Greek,  in  the  hands  of  men  made  docile  by  defeat 
and  beaten  into  hopeless  humility  towards  earthly 
ambitions,  as  "  Pneuma  Hagios  "  or  the  "  Holy 
Spirit."  ^ 

After  taking  several  towms  in  the  mountainous 
region,  with  James,  or  Jacob,  a  prince  of  the 
Idumeans,  he  took  possession  of  that  kingdom 
(Wars  IV,  9,  6).     Returning  north,  followed  by 

1  The  late  birth  legend  in  the  Luke,  1 :  35,  identifies  the 
"  Holy  Spirit "  with  the  "  Power  of  the  Most  High " 
(Gibor-El),  who,  as  a  spirit,  entering  the  body  of  the 
mother,  came  out  incarnate  as  Bar  Gibhora,  the  Son  of  the 
Power  (of  the  Most  High),  the  Son  of  Man,  which,  while 
giving  a  legendary  etymology  for  his  name,  likewise  throws 
light  on  the  statement  in  the  John  10:30,  "  I  and  the  Father 
are  one,"  and  the  John  14:9,  "he  that  hath  seen  me  hath 
seen  the  Father."  In  the  same  manner  did  Proteus  become 
incarnated  as  Apollonius. 


42  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

a  vast  multitude,  he  appeared  before  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem.  The  fame  of  the  Roah  Kadesh  had 
reached  the  Holy  City  before  him.  His  enemies, 
with  Hebraic  humor,  made  a  play  upon  the  name. 
While  some  regarded  him  as  righteous  wrath  per- 
sonified, his  enemies  within  the  city  declared  that 
his  was  not  a  Roah  Kadesh,  but  a  Roah  Kadsha, 
not  a  "  holy  rage,"  but  an  "  erotic  rage."  This 
seems  to  be  the  only  interpretation  of  Mark  3 : 
27-30 : 

"  No  man  can  enter  into  Gi'ora's  house  [translated 
'  a  strong  man's  house  ']  and  plunder  it,  except  he 
first  bind  Gi'ora;  then  he  can  plunder  the  house.  All 
offenses  shall  be  pardoned  of  men  and  all  slanders  of 
whatever  kind  they  may  utter,  but  he  who  shall  slan- 
der the  Roah  Kadesh  shall  never  be  pardoned,  but  is 
in  danger  of  condign  condemnation:  (because  they 
said  he  had  a  Roah  Kadsha)." 

This  rendering  of  the  verses  is  the  only  one  that 
can  make  verse  30  comprehensible.  The  carping 
cynics  had  their  little  pun.  This  also  tends,  so 
far  as  the  Gospels  go,  to  identify  the  Bar  Gi'ora, 
or  Son  of  Man,  with  the  Roah  Kadesh,  or  Holy 
Spirit. 

Jealousy  of  his  success  in  Idumea  produced  the 
other  vile  criticism  that  "  He  drove  out  the  Idu- 
means  by  that  Beesh-zeboul  [Greek  Beezeboul, 
"  fetid  excrement,"]  the  Prince  of  Idumeans," 
(Wars  IV,  9,  5-7).  The  Son  of  Man  began  the 
work  of  cleansing  the  temple  of  the  hostile  Zea- 


THE  WHIRLWIND  OF  KADESH      43 

lots  who,  up  to  that  time  had  held  it.  In  this  he 
was  assisted  by  Eleazar,  his  Peter  or  first-born, 
otherwise  the  Petros  or  "  Rock," —  succeeding 
on  the  Feast  of  Unleavened  Bread  (Wars  V,  1  to 
3).  When  at  length  Titus  attacked  the  city,  the 
Son  of  I\[an  was  assisted  by  James,  the  son  of 
Sosa  (Hebrew  Shosa  signifies  "slaughter"  as 
does  Zehhi),  more  familiar  to  us  as  Zebedee 
(Wars  V,  6,  1),  who  also  had  been  with  Simon  in 
the  Idumean  campaign  (Wars  IV,  4,  2  and  9,  6). 
In  the  suburbs  the  axe  was  laid  to  the  root  of 
the  tree  and  the  timber  was  brought  into  the  city 
to  fortify  against  the  Romans.  When  Titus' 
armies  arrived  under  the  command  of  Tiberius 
Alexander,  Terentius  Rufus,  Sextus  Cerealis, 
Larcius  Lepidus,  Titus  Frigius,  Eternius,  Mar- 
cus Antonius  Julianus,  and  Antiochus  Epiphanes, 
they  made  a  terrible  onslaught.  They  proceeded 
to  station  their  towers  from  which  to  cast  hot 
stones  against  the  Jews.  The  Jews,  from  their 
geenna  (Latin,  aena,  or  ahena,  copper  cauldrons), 
poured  down  Greek  fire  upon  their  towers,  that 
unquenchable  fire  which  trickled  dowTi  in  an  end- 
less serpentine  stream  of  flame  like  a  "  worm  that 
dieth  not."  The  soldiers  who  manned  the  towers 
rushed  away,  mad  with  agony  from  the  flaming 
liquid  that  could  not  be  extinguished.  The  Ro- 
mans with  great  difficult}'  and  after  many  re- 
pulses succeeded  in  protecting  themselves  and 
their  towers  with  plates  and  aprons  of  iron,  on 
which  the  fire  of  the  geenna,  aena  or  cauldrons 


44  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

fell  without  harming-  them.  The  Roman  stone- 
throwing  engines  beat  back  the  men  of  liquid  fire. 
Josephus,  who  wrote  his  history  of  these  events 
under  the  direction  of  Titus,  makes  Titus  perform 
prodigies  of  valor.  He  tells  us  how  Titus  saved 
the  day  for  the  Romans  by  rushing  himself  into 
the  thick  of  the  fight,  and,  single-handed,  killing 
just  a  dozen  Jews.  He  relates  that  Titus  caused 
one  JeAV  to  be  taken  alive  and  then  crucified  be- 
fore the  city  wall  to  terrify  by  his  heart-piercing 
shrieks  the  rest  of  the  defenders  of  the  City  and 
the  Temple.  With  terrific  battering  rams  the 
Romans  hammered  the  walls.  These  gradually 
gave  way  under  the  relentless  hammering  of  the 
rams. 

John,  of  the  Beni-herges,  and  Bar  Gi'ora,  the 
Son  of  ]Man,  now  united  in  their  action  against 
their  common  enemy,  fought  against  the  Romans 
with  a  vigor  born  of  desperation.  The  furious 
energy  of  the  Son  of  Man,  his  flaming  zeal,  fired 
his  followers.  Josephus,  the  arch-traitor,  says  of 
his  arch-enemy.  Bar  Gi'ora:  "The  Jews  had  a 
great  veneration  for  him,  and  to  that  degree  was 
he  regarded  by  every  one  of  those  under  him  that, 
at  his  command,  they  were  quite  ready  to  die  even 
by  their  own  hands."      (Wars,  V,  7). 

The  Romans  fought  with  equal  desperation. 
Longinus,  one  of  the  equestrian  order,  dashed  out 
into  the  midst  of  the  Jewish  warriors  and  killed 
two  of  the  bravest  among  them,  one  of  them  by 
piercing   him    in    the    mouth,    and    the    other   he 


THE  WHIRLWIND  OF  KADESH       45 

pierced  with  a  spear  in  the  side,  and  then  he  es- 
caped to  the  Roman  position  unhanned.  Lon- 
ginus  is  the  name  given  by  the  Apocryphal  Gospel 
of  Nicodemus  (7:8)  to  the  Roman  soldier  who 
pierced  v.itli  a  spear  (louche)  tlie  side  of  the 
Jesus, 

Tlie  Romans,  having  broken  through  the  outer 
wall,  made  a  breach  in  the  second  wall,  and 
through  this  opening  many  of  the  Roman  soldiery 
entered,  but  they  were  driven  out  by  the  alert  and 
fiery  Bar  Gi'ora.  Josephus  admits  that  even 
Titus  himself  was  forced  back  through  the  breach 
by  the  hand  of  the  Son  of  Man.  Titus  sent  the 
renegade  Josephus  to  preach  to  the  Jews  a  per- 
suasive homily  on  the  sin  of  resistance,  but  the 
Jews  answered  the  traitor  with  mockery  and 
scorn.  He  also  received  a  dissuasive  blow  on  the 
skull,  which  induced  him  to  silence.  Titus,  with 
his  own  hand,  flung  a  flaming  torch  against  the 
temple  and  set  it  on  fire.  The  Jews,  who  were 
momentarih'  expecting  divine  intervention  from 
Yahweh  in  their  behalf,  lost  heart  when  they  saw 
that  even  the  Holy  House  of  their  God  could  not 
withstand  the  power  of  the  Romans.  Eleazar, 
the  Rock,  the  Peter,  or  first-boni  son  of  the  Son 
of  Man,  surrendered  and  was  made  prisoner. 
John,  the  son  of  thunder,  or  rather,  of  war,  sur- 
rendered, and  his  life  Avas  spared,  only  to  spend 
it  until  death  in  the  prison  on  the  island  of  the 
river  (pofamos)  Tiber.  Titus  refused  to  spare 
the  life  of  Simon,  the  Son  of  Man,  and  he  fled  into 


46  SII\ION  SON  OF  MAN 

the  ground  through  a  subterranean  passage,  while 
apparently  trying  to  escape  with  the  help  of  a 
confederate  disguised  as  a  water-carrier  (Mark 
14ii:  12-17).  The  Romans  knew  not  where  the 
Son  of  Man  had  fled,  but  famine  found  him  out, 
and  after  three  days  he  arose  as  from  the  heaps 
of  the  dead  from  beneath  the  place  where  formerly 
stood  the  temple,  and  which  had  become  his  tem- 
porary tomb.  Wrapped  in  the  flaming  crimson 
robe  of  his  ro^'alty,  he  made  liis  sudden  resurrec- 
tion in  the  midst  of  the  Roman  guards.  They 
fled  precipitately  from  his  presence.  Terentius 
Rufus,  who  did  not  believe  in  ghosts,  approached 
the  apparition.  The  resurrected  Son  of  Man  re- 
fused to  speak  except  by  signs.  To  all  questions 
and  accusations  he  was  dumb.  The  Gospels  also 
reveal  this  characteristic  attitude  of  the  Son  of 
Man  under  arrest.  At  length  the  Roman  officer 
compelled  him  to  admit  his  identity,  and  he  was 
taken  away  to  the  general's  tent  called  the  prae- 
toriujn.  Many  other  supposedly  dead  Jews  arose 
and  appeared  in  a  similar  manner. 


VI 

ARREST  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN 

"  Remember  that  the  best  and  greatest  among  mankind 
are  those  who  do  themselves  no  worldly  good.  Every  suc- 
cessful man  is  more  or  less  a  selfish  man.  The  devoted  fail." 
—  Thomas  Hardy. 

After  the  arrest  of  Simon,  the  Son  of  Man,  the 
defeat  of  his  arm}",  the  destruction  of  the  Holy 
City  and  the  Temple  of  Yahweh,  and  the  slaughter 
of  a  million  and  a  half  of  Simon's  countrymen,  he, 
the  greatest  genius  of  the  Jewish  race,  was  car- 
ried off  to  Rome  to  grace  the  triumph  of  the 
conqueror. 

It  was  a  triumph  not  only  for  Titus,  but  for 
his  father,  Vespasian.  It  was  a  day  of  joy  im- 
measurable for  the  victors,  but  of  woe  to  thc;  van- 
quished. Indeed,  the  journey  of  Titus  to  Rome 
was  a  succession  of  triumphs.  At  Cssarea,  Titus 
celebrated  the  birthday  of  his  brother  Domitian 
by  feeding  to  the  beasts  in  the  amphitheatre 
2,500  Jews.  Embarking  there  for  Berytus,  in  a 
similar  manner,  he  piously  remembered  his  father 
Vespasian.  At  Antioch  he  found  it  unnecessary 
to  waste  prisoners,  for  there  the  Romans  had  al- 
ready made  a  bonfire  of  the  Jews  who  had  been 
charged  with  setting  fire  to  the  city.     Returning 

47 


48  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

to  Jerusalem  with  his  retinue,  and  then  proceed- 
ing to  Alexandria,  Titus  was  likewise  honored  at 
the  expense  of  the  Jews,  Out  of  the  97,000  Jews 
taken  captive  all  were  sold  into  slavery  on  the  way 
or  given  to  the  beasts,  except  700  of  the  most 
stalwart  who  were  reserved  for  the  great  triumph 
in  Rome, —  among  these  were  Eleazar,  John  and 
Jacob  or  Saul.  Upon  their  arrival  in  Rome,  a 
day  was  set  for  the  greatest  event  in  the  memory 
of  the  generation  —  the  triumph  of  Titus  and 
Vespasian,  the  climax  of  which  was  to  be  the  exe- 
cution of  the  defeated  Jewish  general,  the  Son  of 
Man. 

From  the  Gospels,  though  not  from  Josephus,  it 
would  appear  that  the  Son  of  Man,  Bar  Gi'ora, 
escaped  from  the  drunken  guards  in  Rome  and 
fled.  It  is  probable  that  Josephus  omitted  this 
incident  entirely  out  of  deference  to  the  Romans, 
because  the  story  of  the  escape  of  the  chief  pris- 
oner of  war  immediately  after  the  triumphal  en- 
try into  Rome  by  the  victorious  Titus  and  his 
vanquishers  of  the  Jews,  would  not  be  creditable 
to  the  Romans ;  or  that  the  account  of  the  escape 
was  stricken  out  of  the  report  by  the  editors  and 
censors,  Vespasian  and  Titus, —  who,  Josephus 
says,  edited  his  book  before  publication.  Mark 
(14:  26)  says  the  Son  of  Man  went  "  eis  to  oros 
ton  elaion,"  which  is  usually  translated  "  into 
the  Mount  of  Olives,"  but  which  really  means  as 
it  stands,  "  into  the  mount  of  the  olives."  Jose- 
phus  gives   the   usual   designation   of   the  hill   in 


ARREST  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN      49 

Jerusalem  as  to  Elaion  Oros,  from  which  it  might 
be  inferred  that,  as  name-phrases  usually  are  in- 
variable, following  stereot^^ped  forms,  the  place 
mentioned  in  the  Mark  was  not  the  same  as  that 
referred  to  by  Josephus.  But  there  was  a  place 
in  Rome  just  opposite  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Cap- 
itolinus  which  was  called  the  Forum  Olitorum. 
The  word  Olitorum  could  readily  be  mistaken  for 
Oletorum  or  "  of  the  olives."  In  manuscripts  the 
Gi'eek  article  to  is  frequently  expressed  by  a 
grammalogue  made  by  superimposing  the  first 
upon  the  second  letter  for  which  the  Greek  letter 
Phi  could  easily  be  mistaken  and  the  word  phoron, 
the  Greek  equivalent  for  "  forum  "  could  be  er- 
roneously transcribed  to  oron  and  then  "  cor- 
rected "  into  to  oros,  "  the  Mount."  This  forum 
Avas  located  not  far  from  the  existing  Vecchio 
Ghetto.  From  this  place  the  Son  of  Man  re- 
tired alone  to  another  locality  which  the  Greek 
text  calls  Gethsemane.  In  all  Hebrew  literature 
there  is  no  such  place  mentioned,  and  commenta- 
tors are  not  agreed  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word 
or  the  probable  location  of  the  place.  The  un- 
voweled  Syriac  text  gives  the  name,  not  as 
Gethsemane,  but  GDSMN,  the  reshim  of  Agade- 
simon,  that  is,  Haga  de  Simon,  which  signifies 
"  Refuge  of  Simon  " ;  but  this  brings  us  no  nearer 
to  the  locality.  The  John  says  the  place  was  a 
garden.  It  is  possible  the  "  Refuge,"  or  "  hiding 
place  "  of  Simon  may  have  been  located  in  the 
Hill  of  Gardens  —  the  Gardens  of  Pomponius  II 


50  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

(Tacitus,  Annals,  5,  8)  —  in  the  angle  between 
the  Via  Lata  and  the  Alta  Semita.  This  Via 
Lata,  which  means  "  the  Broad  Way,"  led  down 
to  destruction,  that  is  toward  the  Forum  Ro- 
manum  and  the  Tarpeian  Rock,  and,  as  it  was  a 
frequented  thoroughfare,  many  there  were  who 
went  that  way.  The  Alta  Semita,  or  "  High 
Path,"  was  the  narrow  way  which  was  entered 
through  the  strait  gate  of  safety  (Porta  Salu- 
taris),  and  led  down  toward  the  Temple  of  Salva- 
tion {Templum  Salutis),  and  fewer  were  they  who 
went  that  way  because  of  its  narrowness.  It  was 
the  safer  road  for  a  fugitive.  The  statements  in 
Matthew  7:lS-l-i,  may  be  cryptic  directions  to 
his  friends  who  might  wish  to  rejoin  the  fugitive 
(bariah).  Bar  I  ah  is  the  Hebrew  expression  for 
"  Son  of  God." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  Simon,  the  Son  of  Man, 
was  visited  there  by  his  first-boni  {peter,  in 
Hebrew),  that  is  by  Eleazar,  as  may  be  gathered 
from  the  first  two  evangelists.  That  the  bariah, 
or  the  Bar  lah,  was  unintentionally  betrayed  by 
the  kiss  of  sincere  affection  given  by  this  peter,  or 
Peter,  appears  very  probable.  There  are  two 
words  in  Hebrew  that  are  very  different  in  form 
and  yet  almost  synonymous  in  meaning.  These 
words  are  peter,  "  first  born,"  and  the  word  which 
means  "  only-begotten,"  or  "  only  child,"  that  is 
to  say,  Jehid,  or  Jehidah.  Jehvdah  is  the 
Hebrew  form  of  "  Judas."  The  lengthening  of  a 
lod,  or  i,  into  a  Vav  or  u,  which  might  have  been 


ARREST  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN      51 

caused  by  a  blur  or  a  blemish,  would  make  a 
Jehudah  out  of  a  Jehidah. 

According  to  the  Matthew,  the  Son  of  Man, 
just  before  his  arrest,  addressed  "  the  Judas  "  as 
Hetaire,  which  is  incorrectly  translated  "  Friend." 
The  thought  that  the  "  Unerring  One "  should 
address  a  person  deemed  his  mortal  enemy  as 
"  friend,"  an  epithet  they  believed  to  be  false,  has 
been  a  source  of  great  annoyance  to  expositors. 
Really,  hetaire  is  a  much  more  intimate  term  than 
*'  Friend,"  for  it  means  "  comrade,"  a  military 
expression,  of  course. 

The  Mark  14:45,  relates  the  meeting  thus: 
"  And  when  he  came,  immediately  he  went  up  to 
him  and  said,  '  Rabbi !  rabbi ! '  and  he  kissed  him 
much,"  (see  note  to  Revised  Version).  It  is 
not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  initial  let- 
ter in  "  Rabbi  "  has  been  an  early  addition  to  the 
original  text,  which,  accordingly,  would  previ- 
ously have  read,  "  And  when  he  came,  he  imme- 
diately went  up  to  him  and  said,  '  Abbi !  abbi ! ' 
('My  father!  My  father!')  and  kissed  him 
very  affectionately  (kataphileo).^^  (See  lexicon 
of  Liddell  and  Scott).  It  is  not  reasonable  to 
assume  that  such  a  positive  character  as  the  Son 
of  Man  undoubtedly  was,  would  knowingly  permit 
a  traitor  to  approach  him  within  arms'  length 
and  "  to  kiss  him  very  tenderly  "  as  a  sign  to  an 
enemy.  It  is  more  than  likely  that  he  returned 
the  sincere  embrace  with  equal  warmth,  and  that 
as  they  parted  from  each  other's  arms,  he  per- 


52  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

ceived  the  officers  who  had  shadowed  his  son,  and 
at  that  moment,  discovering  that  all  was  over,  he 
said,  with  infinite  sadness,  as  may  be  gleaned  from 
the  Luke  22:48,  "Darling  [Jehidi],  with  your 
kiss  you  have  betrayed  the  Son  of  Man." 

A  singular  corroboration  of  this  view  is  the 
story  of  the  Peter's  denial.  The  Mark  14:70, 
quotes  the  bystanders  in  the  Pretorian  Camp  as 
saying  to  the  Peter,  "  Surely  thou  art  one  of 
them,"  meaning,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  captives 
(Galah),  "for  thou  art  a  GaMean";  and  the 
Matthew  adds,  "  thy  blabbing  bewrayeth  (Galah) 
thee."  It  is  probable  that  the  word  in  the  origi- 
nal Semitic  text  was  not  "  Galilean,"  a  synonym 
for  Sicarius,  or  "  Zealot,"  after  Judas  the  Gali- 
lean, but  was  Galah,  intended  in  the  sense  of  either 
"captive"  or  "  info  inner,"  (from  Galah,  to  dis- 
cover or  inform  upon).  The  charge,  then,  against 
the  Peter  most  likely  was,  "  Surely  thou  art  one 
of  the  captives  (a  Galah),  thou  art  the  informer 
(Galah)  for  thy  blabbing  betrayed  him." 

The  word  in  the  Greek  text  usually  translated 
"  speech,"  in  the  sense  of  "  dialect,"  namely  lalm, 
does  not  mean  "  dialect  "  in  Greek,  for  that  word 
is  the  original  from  which  is  derived  our  own  word 
"  dialect,"  that  is,  cUalektos.  Lalia  means 
"  blabbing,"  "  prattle,"  "  gossip,"  "  loquacity," 
but  never  "  accent,"  or  "  dialect,"  and  evidently 
referred  to  the  unguarded  words,  "  My  Father ! 
My  Father !  "  which  the  Peter  let  fall,  the  unin- 
tentional cause  of  the  betrayal  of  the  Son  of  Man. 


ARREST  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN      53 

We  can  better  understand,  according  to  this 
view,  why  "  he  began  to  curse  and  to  swear," 
why,  in  his  frenzied  endeavor  to  undo  the  mischief 
he  had  unwittingly  wrought,  he  vainly  protested, 
"  I  do  not  know  this  man,"  or,  as  the  Syriac  text 
has  it  "  I  do  not  know  this  Gibhora,"  and  why, 
when  the  lector,  or  clerk,  read  the  indictment 
against  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Peter,  or  the  Jehid, 
went  out  and  wept  bitterly.  This  also  gives  us  a 
more  worthy  idea  of  tJie  Peter,  and  a  more  char- 
itable opinion  of  the  Jehid,  or  the  Jehudah. 

It  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  the  Jehidah,  who 
unintentionally  betrayed  the  Son  of  Man  with  a 
kiss,  has  been  confounded  with  another  Jehudah, 
or  Judas,  a  traitor  whom  Josephus  mentions  in 
Wars  V,  13 :  2,  where  the  incident  is  related  as 
follows :  "  Now,  when  Judas,  son  of  Judas, ^  who 
was  one  of  Simon's  subordinate  officers,  and  a 
man  instructed  by  him  to  guard  one  of  the  towers, 
saw  this  work  of  Simon  (the  execution  of  Ananias 
and  Mathias)  he  called  together  ten  of  those 
under  him  that  were  most  loyal  to  him,  and  .  .  . 
spoke  to  them  thus :  .  .  .  '  Come  on ;  let  us  sur- 
render this  wall  and  save  ourselves  and  the  City ! ' 
these  ten  men  were  prevailed  upon  by  his  argu- 
ments. .  ,  .  Accordingly  he  called  the  Romans 
from  the  tower,  about  the  third  hour  .   .   .  but, 

1  The  text  of  Josephus  has  evidently  been  tampered  with 
here.  Dr.  Edersheim  (Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the  Messiah, 
vol.  1,  p.  157,  note  3)  refers  to  Delitzsch  as  authority  for 
the  statement  that  there  is  no  instance  in  the  Bible  of  a  son 
being  called  after  his  father's  name. 


54  SIMOX  SOX  OF  MAX 

when  Titus  was  just  approaching  with  his  armed 
men,  Simon  was  informed  of  the  affair,  and  be- 
fore Titus  arrived,  Simon  took  the  tower  into  his 
own  hands,  before  it  was  surrendered,  and  arrested 
these  men  and  executed  them  before  the  very  eyes 
of  the  Romans,  and  .  .  .  hurled  them  down  from 
the  city  wall,"  upon  the  heaps  of  dead  rising  like 
mountains  out  of  the  blood-saturated  fields. 
From  this  the  tradition  may  have  come  tliat  Judas 
was  disemboweled  by  a  fall  upon  a  '*  field  of  blood.*' 
That  there  has  been  confusion  about  the  be- 
trayal stories  of  Judas  is  plainly  shown  in  the 
two  divergent  versions  in  the  ^latthew  27 :  3—8, 
and  Acts  1 :  18-19.  The  Mattliew  says  Judas,  or 
rather,  th£  Judas,  returned  the  tainted  money  to 
the  priests,  but  they  did  not  receive  it  until  after 
he  had  hanged  himself.  Then  they  bought  with 
this  money  "  a  potter's  field  "  '*  to  bury  strangers 
in,"  and  because  the  land  had  been  bought  with 
blood-money,  they  called  it  ''  the  field  of  blood." 
The  Story  in  the  Acts  is  very  different.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Acts  Judas  did  not  return  whining  with 
the  blood-money,  but  frugally  invested  the  thirty 
pieces  of  silver  ($5.10)  in  real  estate,  and  after- 
ward, presumably  while  plowing  the  farm,  falling 
headlong  in  the  field,  his  body  burst  and  his  blood 
flowed  out  into  the  soil.  On  account  of  this  bap- 
tism of  blood  the  field  was  called,  "  in  their  proper 
tongue,"  according  to  the  Acts,  "  Aceldama,  or 
the  field  of  blood."  AceM^ma  (or  Akeldamcch^ 
as  Tischendorf,  Xestle  and  other  editors  write  the 


ARREST  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN      55 

word)  does  not  mean  "  the  field  of  blood,"  as  the 
English  translations  render  it,  nor  "  a  place  of 
blood,"  as  the  Greek  text  gives  it.  The  usual 
etymology  of  the  term  is  Haqel-dama,  but  the 
Hebrew  dictionaries  give  us  no  such  word  as 
Haqel.  Young's  Concordance,  without  attempt- 
ing the  etymology,  gives  the  meaning  of  the  term 
as  "  portion  of  blood."  Now,  "  portion  "  is  one 
of  the  meanings  of  Haleq,  not  Haqel.  But  Haleq 
is  also  the  Hebrew  equivalent  of  the  Latin  Calvus, 
"  bald,"  the  root  of  Calvaria.  Dam  is  the  He- 
brew word  for  "  blood,"  and  darna  is  the  word  for 
"  ruination,"  "  destruction,"  or  "  slaughter." 
So  Haleq-dama  is  properly  translated  "  Cal- 
vary," "bald  rock  (or  crag)  of  destruction," 
evidently  another  crypticism  for  the  Capitoline 
Rock,  as  we  shall  show  later.  If  the  Jehidah  met 
his  death,  as  the  Acts  declares,  by  "  falling  head- 
long," that  is,  if  he  "  suffered  a  death  similar  to 
his  INIaster's,  but  with  his  head  downwards,"  the 
tradition  of  the  manner  of  death  of  "  the  chiefest 
of  the  Apostles  "  is  confirmed. 

We  know  at  least  from  the  John  6:71,  13:2, 
and  13:  26  (Tischendorf's  text)  that  this  Jehudah 
was  the  Jehid,  or  only  son  of  Simon  Iscariotes, 
that  is  to  say,  of  Simon  Sicariotes,  or  Simon  the 
Sicarius.  This  Simon  Iscariotes  is  identified  with 
Simon  Zelotes  of  the  Luke  6:  15,  and  Acts  1:13, 
and  this  fact  helps  to  elucidate  farther  the 
etymology  of  Iskariotes,  which  we  show  is  writ- 
ten   in    Syriac    as    Sikariota.     A   Zelotes    and    a 


56  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Sicariotes,  or  Sicarius,  were  one  and  the  same,  a 
member  of  the  patriotic  party  whom  the  traitor 
Josephus  and  their  cruel  conquerors  sought  to 
scourge  with  scornful  and  opprobrious  names. 
This  Simon  Zelotes,  or  Simon  Sicariotes,  of  the 
Luke  and  the  John  is  but  a  reduplication  of  the 
great  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man,  the 
chief  Zealot,  Sicarius,  Sicariotes  or  arch-rebel. 
The  Jehudah,  "had  the  purse,"  (John  13:29), 
that  is  he  was  the  treasurer.  Eleazar,  the  son  of 
Simon,  was  the  treasurer  during  the  siege  of  Jeru- 
salem, and  he  issued  coins  bearing  the  inscription, 
"  Eleazar,  the  Priest ;  First  Year  of  the  Freedom 
of  Israel,"  and  also  the  emblems  typified  by  a 
cluster  of  grapes,  the  crown  of  his  father,  the 
king.  The  Talmudic  tract  entitled  Toledoth 
Jeschu  preserves  the  legend  which  practically 
identifies  the  Judas  with  the  Peter,  and  to  which 
we  refer  in  the  Chapter  on  Simon  Magus. 

Out  of  analogy  with  the  word  Zelotes,  and  such 
words  as  stratiotes,  lutrotes,  misthotes,  etc.,  the 
term  Sicarius,  when  it  came  to  be  used  as  a  part 
of  a  personal  name,  was  given  the  corresponding 
Greek  termination,  that  is,  Sicariotes.  Now, 
Jehudah  Sikariota  is  the  name  written  in  the 
Syriac  text  corresponding  to  ho  loudas  ho  Iska- 
riotes  of  the  Greek  "  the  Judas  the  Sikariotes," 
which  our  English  Testaments  render  "  Judas 
Iscariot."  There  is  no  ground  for  deriving  the 
term  Iskariotes  from  the  Semitic  Ish  Kerioth,  or 
"  Man  of  Kerioth,"  for  no  such  place  as  Kerioth 


ARREST  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN      57 

ever  existed  outside  the  heads  of  some  Christian 
expositors,  and  the  habit  of  naming  men  after 
their  dwelling  places  was  not  a  common  practice 
until  the  establishment  of  the  feudal  system. 

Canon  Farrar  notes  two  references  to 
"Kcrioth,"  in  the  Old  Testament,  Josh.  15:25, 
and  Jer.  48:41,  in  which  the  word  kerioth  is  to 
be  found  and  which  the  King  James  version  trans- 
literates and  dignifies  with  a  capital  initial  as  a 
proper  name.  The  word  kerioth,  or  keroth,  is  the 
plural  of  kir,  the  Hebrew  for  "  fortress,"  to 
which  we  refer  in  identifying  "  Simon  the  Cyren- 
ian."  The  King  James  version  gives  the  passage 
as  "  Kerioth  is  taken  and  the  strongholds  are  sur- 
prised." Leeser,  recognizing  the  Hebrew  parallel- 
ism, translates  this  passage  from  Jeremiah  cor- 
rectly :  "  Captured  are  the  fortresses,  and  the 
strongholds  are  taken."  In  the  Joshua  reference 
is  found  a  list  of  frontier  towns  "  near  the  border 
of  Edom,"  among  which  is  "  kerioth  Hezron,"  or 
"  the  fortresses  of  Hezron,"  but  no  town  of 
"  Kerioth."  There  is  no  reference  in  Josephus  to 
any  place  named  Kerioth  as  existing  in  his  day. 
Even  granting  the  etymology  of  Iskariotes  as  Ish 
Kerioth,  the  name  "  man-of-the-fortresses  "  would 
at  best  bring  us  to  the  watcher  on  the  walls  or 
kerioth  of  Jerusalem  whom  Simon  so  summarily 
punished ;  but  this  would  altogether  spoil  the 
chronology  of  the  expositors,  besides  being  an 
ex  post  facto  name. 


VII 
TRIAL  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN 

"  Not  inquiring  into  truths  which  admit  of  investigation 
is   indolence." —  Eusebius. 

Joseplius  recites  that,  during  the  progress  of 
the  triumph,  and  when  the  triumphal  party  had 
arrived  at  the  Porticus  Octaxiae,  "  a  tribunal 
[Bema  is  the  word  used  by  both  Josephus  and  the 
John]  was  set  up  before  the  stoa  or  colonnaded 
court,  and  ivory  chairs  were  set  upon  the  plat- 
form." The  details  of  the  trial  are  omitted  in 
Josephus,  or  have  been  eradicated  by  pious  zeal. 

The  Forticus  Octaxiae  was  an  area  paved 
with  marble,  and  surrounded  by  a  colonnade  of 
300  Corinthian  columns.  It  was  adorned  with 
many  beautiful  works  of  art,  part  of  the  Mace- 
donian booty,  which  included  the  best  products  of 
the  skill  of  Phidias  and  other  Grecian  sculptors. 
It  was  situated  not  far  from  the  Clivus  Capitol- 
inus,  of  which  the  fatal  Tarpeian  rock  formed 
part.  This  paved  area  is  the  Pavement  (Litho- 
stratos)  mentioned  in  John  19:13,  as  the  place 
of  the  bemn,  tribunal,  or  judgment  seat  before 
which  the  Son  of  Man  was  conducted.  The  text 
of  the  John,  as  we  now  have  it,  gives  the  Hebrew 

58 


TRIAL  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN         59 

equivalent  of  Lithostratos,  or  Pavement,  as  Gab- 
batha.  This  statement,  as  it  stands,  is  incorrect. 
The  error  should  not,  perhaps,  be  charged  to  the 
writer  of  the  original  text,  for,  undoubtedly,  there 
has  been  a  phrase  omitted  by  a  copyist  to  the 
effect  that  this  pavement  "  was  near  the  place 
called  in  Hebrew  Gabbatha,"  for  "  Gab-batha  " 
is  the  exact  Hebrew  equivalent  of  "  Clivus  Cap- 
italis,"  which  would  be  a  likely  foreigner's  under- 
standing of  the  correct  term,  Clivus  Capitolinus. 

According  to  the  statement  in  the  Mark,  the 
oldest,  simplest  and  least  adorned  of  all  the  Gos- 
pel accounts,  the  Son  of  Man  was  brought  before 
the  Archieros,  or  High-Priest,  that  is,  the  Ponti- 
fex  Maximus.  The  jurisdiction  of  the  Pontifices 
was  confined  to  religious  matters ;  for,  according 
to  Roman  law,  the  pontifices  were  rerum  quae  ad 
sacra  et  religiones  pertinent,  judices  et  vmidices, 
— "  Judges  and  avengers  of  matters  which  pertain 
to  religion  and  holy  things." 

According  to  the  IVIark  the  charges  before  the 
Pontifex  Maximus  related  to  matters  of  religion 
merely.  He  was  accused  of  blasphemy  in  threat- 
ening to  destroy  the  temple  and  re-erecting  it 
"  in  three  days."  In  this  charge  we  have  an  an- 
achronism due  to  the  distance  of  time  after  the 
event  recorded  that  the  Mark  account  was  writ- 
ten. The  temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus  was  de- 
stroyed "  in  three  days  "  by  a  fire  which  occurred 
during  the  second  3'ear  of  the  reign  of  Titus. 
This   is   much   closer   chronology   than   many   in- 


60  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

stances  to  be  found  in  the  Talmud,  and  closer 
even  than  Luke  comes  to  some  dates,  for  example, 
the  error  of  forty  years  (Luke  3:1)  regarding 
the  incumbency  of  Lysanias  of  the  tetrarchate  of 
Abilene. 

That  this  is  the  temple  he  is  charged  with  in- 
tending to  destroy,  is  manifest  from  the  John 
(2:  20)  in  which  the  assertion  is  made  "  forty  and 
six  years  was  this  temple  in  building."  Solo- 
mon's temple,  it  is  related,  was  only  seven  years  in 
building,  and  it  is  said  to  have  been  rebuilt  by 
Zerubabel  in  seven  years  more ;  the  external  part 
of  the  third  Temple  was  built  by  Herod  in  eight 
years,  and  the  temple  proper  by  the  priests  in  a 
year  and  a  half  more.  All  three  temples  to- 
gether required  but  a  trifle  over  half  the  forty-six 
years  mentioned  by  the  John.  It  is  a  significant 
fact,  however,  that  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Cap- 
itolinus  took  forty-six  years  to  complete.  Ac- 
cording to  the  Mark,  the  Pontifex  Maximus  asked 
the  prisoner,  "  Art  thou  the  Anointed  (King), 
the  son  of  the  blessed? "  The  "  son  of  the 
blessed  "  is  a  most  unusual  phrase,  and,  therefore, 
very  liable  to  be  understood  ambiguously.  The 
question,  as  it  stands,  seems  far  from  clear,  until 
the  words  are  turned  into  Semitic.  Then  the 
question  would  be,  "  Art  thou  the  Messiah,  Bar 
ha  Borah?  "  or,  the  "  B  "  of  "  Borah  "  being  as- 
pirated, "  Bar  ha  'orah,"  an  easy  pla}^  on  "  Bar 
Gi'ora,"  (pronounced  Bar  he-orah).^ 

1  To  play  upon  the  word  Borach  appears  to  have  been  a 


TRIAL  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN         61 

Now,  we  know  from  the  Mark  (12: 13)  that  the 
Pharisees  sought  to  "  catch  him  in  his  words," 
or,  as  the  Matthew  (22: 15)  puts  it,  they  "  took 
counsel  how  they  might  entangle  him  in  his  talk." 
The  interpreter  for  the  Pontifex  who  was,  cer- 
tainly no  friend  of  the  prisoner,  and  being  bi- 
lingual, was,  doubtless,  a  clever  twister  of  words, 
would  find  no  difficulty  in  twisting  Borah  into 
'ibhora,  or  "  Ghibhora,"  that  is,  "  Giora."  The 
sentence  might  be  pronounced  so  that  it  would 
have  three  interpretations: 

(1)  "Art  thou  the  Messiah,  the  son  of  the 
blessed?  " 

(2)  "  Art  thou  the  Messiah,  the  son  of  blas- 
phemy," (that  is,  the  blasphemer;  for  in  the 
Semitic  languages  the  same  word  was  used  for 
both  "  blasphemy "  and  "  blessing,"  the  real 
meaning  being  determined  by  the  context). 

(3)  "  Art  thou  the  Messiah,  Bar  Gi'ora?  " 
This  latter  seems  to  be  the  sense  in  which  the 

prisoner  understood  the  question,  for  he  answered 
(Mark  14:62): 

"  I  am;  and  you  shall  see  the  Ben  Adam,  Simon 

special  pastime  of  Akiba,  whose  identification  we  shall 
hereafter  see.  In  his  tract  Kohelet  Rabbah  he  dwells  with 
delight  upon  Ecclesiastes  12:1,  Zehor  eth  Borech,  "Re- 
member thy  creator  " ;  playing  upon  Borech,  he  says  "  Re- 
member thy  source  (Borech),  thy  grave  (Borech)  and  thy 
creator  (Borech)."  The  distinguishing  letters  in  Hebrew 
are  the  Aliph  and  the  Vav,  but  as  both  have  the  same  vowel 
pointing,  the  words  are  indistinguishable  when  transliterated 
into  Roman  letters,  as  they  are  in  pronunciation. 


62  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Bar  Gi'ora,  '  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  '  '* 
—  quoting  Daniel. 

The  usual  translation  "  sitting  on  the  right 
hand  of  power,"  a  most  unconventional  expres- 
sion, makes  no  appeal  to  the  imagination,  and, 
closely  inspected  by  itself,  conveys  but  little  mean- 
ing. It  is  not  a  part  of  the  Daniel  prophecy,  but 
seems  interjected  into  the  very  heart  of  the  quota- 
tion. But  when  we  realize  that  the  Hebrew  for 
"  sit  "  is  Sim,  imin  (unpointed)  is  "  right  hand," 
and  Gi'ora  is  "  power  "  the  awkwardness  of  the 
phrase  disappears,  and  we  realize  in  it  an  ex- 
planatory phrase,  embodying  the  characters  of 
the  name  of  the  Son  of  JNIan,  and  parenthetically 
inserted  in  the  prophetic  quotation. 

This  confession  or  plea  of  guilty  the  Pontifex 
Maximus  deemed  sufficient  for  botli  identification 
and  condemnation,  but  he  evidently  felt  the  cap- 
ital sentence  should  be  endorsed  by  the  secular 
authority,  hence,  the  Son  of  Man  was  sent  to  the 
Praelatus. 

The  Praelatus  who  presided  at  the  secular  trial, 
appears  in  the  common  text  as  the  Peilatos,  an 
expression  which  is  made  to  pass  for  "  Pilatus," 
a  person  who  had  died  thirty  years  before.  It 
is  worthy  of  note  that  the  word  "  Pontius  "  does 
not  occur  at  all  in  the  Mark,  the  oldest  of  the 
Gospels,  nor  in  any  other  Gospel  except  in  the 
Luke  (3:1)  where  it  is  found  in  part  of  the 
infancy  story,  a  later  accretion  of  the  myth- 
makers. 


TRIAL  OF  THE  SON  OF  MAN        63 

The  legend  of  the  cock  crowing  evidently 
comes  in  through  the  error  of  the  writer  who  ex- 
panded the  Ur-mark  into  the  Mark.  He  con- 
founded the  Latin  word  lector,  or  "  clerk,"  whose 
duty  it  was  to  publicly  read  the  bill  of  indict- 
ment against  the  condemned  three  consecutive 
times,  and  the  Greek  word  alektor  —  Poor  Chan- 
ticleer! so  startlingly  out  of  place  in  the  story, — 
to  be  thus  incontinently  pulled  in  by  the  gills ! 

The  Praelatus  (which  word  the  Romans  pro- 
nounced "  Pry-latus,"  not  much  different  from 
Peilatos,  that  is  '*  Py-latus  "),  being  concerned, 
not  with  any  religious  inquisition,  but  merely  with 
the  civil  side  of  the  case,  asked  the  defendant, 
"  Are  you  the  king  of  the  Jews?  "  to  which  Bar 
Gi'ora  replied,  "  You  have  said  it !  "  This  plea  of 
guilty  seemed  sufficient  for  the  Praelatus,  who, 
without  much  further  ceremony,  according  to  the 
Mark,  turned  the  prisoner  who  had  been  brought 
to  him  —  the  civil  authority,  by  the  Pontifex  — 
the  religious  authority,  over  to  the  military 
authority  for  punishment. 

The  story  in  the  Mark  is  simple,  void  of  the 
contradictory  mythical  accretions  of  the  later 
Evangelists,  and  is  perfectly  rational  and  consist- 
ent, without  any  straining  after  dramatic  effect. 

It  is  well  to  note  here  that  the  Mark  makes  no 
mention  of  Herod  at  the  trial,  though  Herod  was 
in  Rome  at  the  time.  Neither  does  he  give  the 
name  of  the  High-Priest  or  Pontifex  Maximus, 
which  fact  leads  us  to  assume  that  the  introdue- 


64  STMON  SON  OF  MAN 

tion  of  Annas  and  Caiaphas  into  the  story  by  the 
Matthew  and  the  John  was  done  to  establish  a 
date  a  generation  earher  than  that  of  the  real 
event,  and  to  put  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  Man 
upon  the  Jews. 

In  the  John  account  the  praelatus  in  deliver- 
ing the  prisoner  over  to  the  soldiers  said,  accord- 
ing to  the  Syriac  text,  Ha  Gihhora!  that  is, 
"  Here  is  Gi'ora,"  otherwise  "  Behold  a  man !  " 

The  soldiers  to  whom  the  prisoner  was  com- 
mitted, took  him  to  the  Castra  Praetoria,  or  Pre- 
torian  Camp  for  his  appearance  before  the  Com- 
itia.  The  English  Authorized  Version  renders 
the  words  aule,  ho  esti  Praitorion,  as  "  the  hall 
called  Praetorium,"  with  a  marginal  note  to 
"  Praetorium  "  which  reads,  "  or  Palace."  The 
Douay  version  translates  this  phrase,  "  the  court 
of  the  palace."  The  word  aule  is  the  Septuagint 
rendering  of  the  Hebrew  mahanoth,  or  "  camp,"  in 
II  Chronicles,  31 :  2,  and  elsewhere.  The  phrase, 
aule  ho  esti  Praitorion,  is  plainly  intended  as  a 
designation  of  the  Praetorian  Camp,  the  Castra 
Praetoria,  which  stood  and  which  still  stands  on 
the  Viminal  Hill,  in  the  northeastern  section  of 
the  City  of  Rome. 


VIII 
THE  TRIUMPH  OF  TITUS  TRAVESTIED 

"There  is  no  evidence  better  than  that  of  a  just  inference 
from  known  events,  for  events  cannot  lie,  whereas  the  eye- 
witness can,  and  very  often  does." 

Both  Josephus  and  the  Mark  agree  as  to  the 
indignities  which  the  Son  of  Man  suffered.  Jo- 
sephus says,  "  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  was  led  in  the 
triumph  among  the  captives.  A  rope  had  been 
put  about  his  neck,  .  .  .  and  he  had  withal  been 
tormented  by  those  who  drew  him  along."  The 
Mark  says,  "  They  clothed  him  with  purple,  and 
plaited  a  crown  [Stephajiosi  of  acanthus,  they 
put  it  on  him  .  .  .  and  they  smote  his  head  with 
a  reed  and  .   .  .  they  mocked  him." 

An  ancient  picture  of  the  procession  toward 
Calvary,  a  fresco  in  the  church  of  St.  Stephanus 
in  Bologna,  represents  the  prisoner  hauled  along, 
as  Josephus  says  he  was,  by  a  rope. 

The  Matthew  says  (27:28)  "They  put  on 
him  a  scarlet  robe  and  they  plaited  a  crown  of 
acanthus,  and  put  it  on  his  head,  and  a  reed  in 
his  right  hand,  and  they  knelt  down  before  him 
and  mocked  him,  saying,  *  Hail,  King  of  the 
Jews ! '  " 

65 


66  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  recorded  triumphal  entry  of  the  Son  of 
Man  into  Jerusalem,  represented  as  occurring 
just  before  his  execution,  is  a  later  reflection  of 
the  mock-triumph  actually  tendered  him  in  Titus' 
triumphal  entry  into  Rome.  Seating  him  upon 
an  ass,  a  beast  which  was  to  the  Romans  the  in- 
carnation of  contempt,  was,  doubtless  intended 
to  overwhelm  him  with  contumely  and  win  for  him 
the  hilarious  mockery  of  the  mob  along  the  route. 
This  fact,  in  conjunction  with  the  belief  of  the 
Roman  rabble  that  the  Jews  worshipped  an  ass' 
head,  intensified  their  scorn  for  the  King  of  the 
Jews  and  the  contrast,  in  their  eyes,  between  the 
humiliated  butt  of  their  rampant  ribaldry,  and 
his  conqueror  who  rode  in  advance  of  the  Son  of 
Man  in  the  noblest  Roman  state. 

The  description  quoted  above  from  the  Mat- 
thew is  evidently  a  correct  account  of  the  mock 
"  triumph "  of  the  conquered.  In  Freund's 
Latin  lexicon,  under  the  word  "  triumphus,"  we 
find,  "  The  conqueror  rode  in  a  chariot  drawn  by 
white  horses,  and  was  dressed  in  the  toga  picta 
and  tunica  palmata,  with  a  wreath  of  laurel  on 
his  head  and  an  ivory  wand,  or  scepter  in  his 
hand."  He  was  hailed  with  joy  by  the  populace. 
Josephus  says  of  thig  particular  occasion :  "  As 
soon  as  it  was  day  Vespasian  and  Titus  came  out 
crowned  with  laurel  and  clothed  in  purple  gar- 
ments." 

In  the  Gospel  story  of  the  triumph,  Jerusalem 
has  been  cryptically  substituted  for  Rome.     The 


TRIUMPH  OF  TITUS  TRAVESTIED      67 

salutation  of  the  populace  (Mark  11:9,  corrected 
with  John  12:13)  runs  thus:  "  Hosanna 
(Hoshiah  na,  '  Save  us,  we  beseech  you  '),  Blessed 
(Borah)  the  King  of  Israel,  who  cometh  in  the 
name  (Shem)  of  the  Lord  (maria)  !  Hosanna 
(Hoshiah  na,  '  Save  us,  we  beseech  you  ')  !  in  the 
highest  (ba  Roma).''''  These  words  fit  right  in 
with  the  account  of  the  Roman  triumph,  when  the 
Jewish  residents,  in  their  native  Aramaic,  cried 
out  in  sincerity  high  above  the  ribald  mockery  of 
the  Roman  mob :  "  Save  us,  we  beseech  you ! 
O,  King  of  Israel,  who  cometh  from  Samaria 
[ancient  Israel]  !  Save  us,  we  beseech  you,  in 
Rome !  " 

The  meaningless  expression,  Hosanna  en  tois 
hi/psistois,  "  Save  us,  we  beseech  you,  in  the  high- 
est," occurs  nowhere  at  all  in  Hebrew  literature. 


IX 

"THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL" 

"  Things  are  what  they  are,  and  the  consequence  of  them 
will  be  what  they  will  be.  Why,  then,  should  we  desire  to 
be  deceived?" — Bishop  Butler. 

With  pathetic  faith,  the  populace  clung  to  the 
vain  hope  that  even  on  the  brink  of  destruction 
Yahweh  would  intervene  and  snatch  his  chosen 
one  from  the  midst  of  his  enemies.  But  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man,  the  greatest  Jew  of 
all  time,  met  the  fate  of  every  conquered  king 
dragged  along  in  a  Roman  triumph:  He  was 
hurled  from  the  Tarpeian  Rock,  otherwise  the 
Capitoline  Rock,  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  "  heavenly 
father,"  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  the  god  of  the  Ro- 
mans. 

The  Mark  says  he  was  executed  at  a  place 
called  in  Hebrew,  "  Golgotha,  which  is,  being  in- 
terpreted, '  the  place  of  a  skull.' "  The  name 
Golgotha  is  not  to  be  found  anywhere  in  all  He- 
brew literature.  There  was  no  such  place  known 
to  the  ancients  in  pre-Christian  times.  Tradi- 
tion, even,  which  can  point  out  the  exact  location 
of  the  prison  from  which  the  fictitious  Count  of 

Monte  Cristo  escaped,  is  quite  uncertain  as  to  the 

68 


THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL  69 

location  of  Golgotha.  Some  think  it  was  a  place 
of  public  execution  named  after  a  mound  of  ac- 
cumulated skulls ;  but  permitting  any  portion  of 
the  human  body  to  remain  unburied  would  be  an 
abomination  to  the  Torah-observing  Jews.  Some 
believe  it  might  have  been  a  skull-shaped  hill  near 
Jerusalem;  but  there  was  no  such  skull-shaped 
hill  there.  Even  the  word  "  Golgotha  "  proves 
that  the  inventor  of  the  name  was  not  expert  in 
the  Sacred  Language,  for  the  real  Hebrew  word 
for  "  skull  "  is  gulgoleth. 

While  there  is  no  "  place  of  a  skull "  near 
Jerusalem,  there  is,  however,  a  "  place  of  a  skull  " 
in  Rome.  That  is  just  what  Capitolinus  means. 
See  any  complete  Latin  lexicon.  According  to 
Roman  tradition,  the  CapitoUum  was  so  named 
because  workmen,  while  excavating  for  the  founda- 
tions of  the  great  temple  of  Jupiter,  dug  up  a 
sk^dl  said  to  have  been  the  head  (Caput)  of  a 
certain  Olus,  hence  the  name  Capit-Olium:  the 
temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus  was  "  The  place  of 
a  skull."  However  fanciful  this  etymology  may 
be,  does  not  matter.  It  is  sufficient  to  show  what 
was  the  popular  etymology  of  the  word.  (See 
Livy,  1,  55,  56:  and  Varro  De  Lingua  Latina, 
v,  41).      That  is  all  that  concerns  us  here.^ 

Our   present    texts    of   the   Gospels    have   been 

1  While  none  of  the  Gospels  state  that  Golgotha  was  a 
hill,  yet  tradition  corroborates  what  has  been  said  above, 
that  the  Capi^-oline,  or  Calvary,  was  an  elevated  promi- 
nence, or  a  "  mount." 


70  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

edited  with  the  idea  of  concealing  from  the  Ro- 
mans the  real  identity  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and 
with  the  further  purpose  of  seeing  "  that  the 
Scriptures  be  fulfilled."  The  narrative  of  the  ex- 
ecution has  been  inspired  principally  by  the 
Twenty-second  Psalm,  which  has  supplied  the 
several  incidents  of  the  stor}' :  (1)  the  gaping 
multitude,  (2)  the  mocking  words  of  the  mob,  (3) 
their  wagging  heads,  (4)  the  parting  of  the  gar- 
ments and  the  casting  of  lots  for  them,  (5)  the 
story  of  his  thirst,  (6)  the  crucifixion  by  nailing 
hands  and  feet,  a  barbarity  most  unusual  with 
even  the  brutal  Romans,  and  (7)  the  last  despair- 
ing words  of  the  Son  of  Man.  These  facts  will 
the  more  plainly  appear  upon  an  examination  of 
the  words  of  the  Psalm :  ^ 

All  they  that  see  me  laugh  me  to  scorn:  they  have 
spoken  with  the  lips,  and  wag  their  heads,  saying, 

"  He  trusted  in  the  Lord;  let  him  deliver  him: 
Let  him  save  him.   .  .  ." 

They  gaped  upon  me  with  their  mouths  as  upon  a 
ravening  and  roaring  lion  [the  lion  and  the  therion 
of  the  Apocalypse]. 

My  strength  is  dried  up  like  a  potsherd;  and  my 
tongue  cleaveth  to  my  j  aws ;  and  thou  hast  brought  me 
unto  the  dust  of  death. 

1  The  Psalm  plainly  was  not  intended  by  its  writer  as  a 
prophecy.  It  is  nothing  more  than  a  plaintive  appeal  to 
the  national  deity  made  by  Israel,  which  outlines  its  hope- 
less, prostrate,  and  persecuted  condition  in  the  midst  of  the 
Goim,  or  Gentile  nations. 


THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL  71 

I  am  a  worm  [thola]  and  no  man:  the  reproach  of 
men  and  the  outcast  of  the  people. 

They  part  my  garments  among  them^  and  cast  lots 
for  my  vesture. 

Deliver  my  soul  from  the  svrord  and  my  darling 
[Jehida]  from  the  dog. 

For  dogs  have  compassed  me :  the  assembly  of  male- 
factors have  inclosed  me:  they  pierced  my  hands  and 
my  feet. 

My  God!  my  God!  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me? 
Why  art  thou  so  far  from  helping  me,  and  from  the 
words  of  my  shrieking.'' 

The  essential  part  of  this  "  prophecy  "  and  the 
core  upon  Avhich  the  crucifixion  story  has  been 
wound,  "  They  have  pierced  my  hands  and  my 
feet,"  is  not  in  the  Hebrew  text,  but  it  is  found  in 
the  Septuagint.  The  Hebrew  text  reads,  "  Like 
lions,  my  hands  and  my  feet."  This  goes  to  show 
that  the  authors  of  the  story  of  the  execution 
have  fulfilled  more  prophecy  than  there  was  any 
warrant  for,  and  because  they  read  their  Bible  in 
the  Greek  or  Septuagint  version.  We  are  in- 
debted to  the  error  of  the  translation  from  He- 
brew into  Greek  for  the  story  of  the  cruel  cruci- 
fixion. 

Words,  however,  like  aphes  and  aphete,  "  Let 
him  go,"  or,  "  Let  go,"  that  stand  out  awkwardly 
in  the  common  text  and  become  thorns  to  trans- 
lators, point  to  an  earlier  Greek  account  in  which 
the  true  story  was  told. 


72  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  word  stauros,  in  classical  Greek  does  not 
at  all  mean  "  cross,"  but  "  stake,"  "  pole,"  or 
"  pale."  The  word  stauroein  usually  translated 
"  to  crucify,"  meant  in  Attic  Greek  merely  "  to 
drive  stakes,"  "  to  impalisade."  Only  in  ecclesias- 
tical Greek  has  it  come  to  designate  one  of  the  Ro- 
man methods  of  execution,  "  to  gibbet,"  "  im- 
pale," or  "  crucify."  It  is  not  improbable  that 
a  temporary  stauroma,  a  pale  or  palisaded  en- 
closure, made  of  stauroi,  or  stakes,  and  which 
embraced  a  sanis,  a  scaffold  or  stage,  with  a  trap 
door,  was  erected  at  the  place  of  execution. 
Upon  the  trap  door  the  condemned  man  was 
pushed  out  (anothein),  and  at  the  word,  "  Ap- 
hete!  "  "  Let  go !  "  the  trap  door  was  sprung 
and  the  unhappy  victim  was  hurled  down  the  Tar- 
peian  rock. 

The  suggestion  of  a  prior  Greek  document  that 
Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man  was  "  im- 
palisaded  "  {stauroein),  and  the  account  of  his 
despairing  cry  for  help  to  his  absent  son  were 
sufficient  to  suggest  the  Twenty-second  Psalm, 
and  with  the  aid  of  that  document,  to  convert  the 
original  account  into  the  conventional  fiction  of 
the  crucifixion.  Enough  of  the  first  account  still 
remains  to  enable  one  to  reconstruct  in  part  at 
least  the  story  of  the  execution.  This  is  rend- 
ered plain  with  very  little  change  in  the  wording 
of  the  present  text  or  in  the  order  of  the  words. 

There  is  practical  agreement  between  the  Mark 
and  the  Matthew  in  regard  to  the  last  words  ut- 


THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL  73 

tered  by  the  Son  of  Man,  namely,  Eli!  Eli!  lama 
sabachthani? —  the  Aramaic  words  which  are 
commonly  translated  in  our  English  Testaments, 
"  My  God !  My  God !  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me?  "  These  are  the  English  words  for  the  first 
sentence  in  the  Twenty-second  Psalm. 

It  is  probable  they  were  never  intended  by  him 
who  spoke  them  as  a  quotation  from  the  Psalm, 
but  were  the  spontaneous  utterance  of  genuine 
despair  put  forth  when  every  hope  was  lost.  Had 
they  been  intended  as  a  Biblical  quotation  they 
would  have  been  given  in  Biblical  Hebrew,  the 
Sacred  Language,  and  not  in  vulgar  Aramaic. 
It  is  possible  they  were  a  plaintive  protest  at 
Eleazar's  failure  to  rescue  him  in  his  dire  ex- 
tremity, for  the  words  Eli!  Eli!  (or  Eloi! 
Eloi!  as  in  the  Mark)  are  the  endearing  diminu- 
tive of  Eleazar  which  he,  perhaps  customarily, 
applied  to  his  only  son.  Two  facts  appear  to 
corroborate  this  view.  One  of  them  is  that  the 
first  sentence  in  the  Syriac  text  of  the  twenty- 
second  Psalm  reads  "  lamna  shabachthani,"  and 
is  properly  translated  "  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me,"  while  the  sentence  quoted  in  the  Greek  text 
reads  "  lama  sabachthani,"  and  signifies  merely, 
"  Hast  thou  forsaken  me?  "  The  diflFerence  lies 
between  lamna,  meaning  "why,"  and  Zo^wa,  which 
is  a  mere  sign  of  interrogation,  like  num  in  Latin, 
and  is  not  translated  in  modern  English. 

The  second  fact  is  that  the  Gospel  stories  relate 
that  immediately  after  the  arrest  of  the  Son  of 


74  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Man  he  was  forsaken  by  the  Peter  and  his  com- 
rades. The  Peter  is  not  reported  by  any  of  the 
Evangelists  as  having  been  present  at  the  execu- 
tion/ and  it  is  possible  that  the  thought  which 
darkened  the  last  moment  of  the  Son  of  Man  was 
this :  Did  the  Peter,  his  first-born  son,  the  Jehid, 
or  darling  of  his  heart,  forsake  him  too?  If  that 
be  the  interpretation,  it  deserves  to  stand  with 
the  classical  last  words  which  another  military 
genius  uttered  under  somewhat  different  circum- 
stances to  his  adopted  son,  "  Et  tu.  Brute!  " 

On  the  other  hand,  if  they  were  intended  as  a 
despairing  rebuke  to  the  deity  for  failing  him 
and  the  great  cause  in  the  last  bitter  hour,  they 
are  profoundly,  immeasurably  sad.  Coming  from 
the  man  whose  faith  was  the  stronghold  that  had 
withheld  the  hosts  of  Rome  for  the  prophetic 
period  of  three  and  one-half  years  —  from  one 
whose  very  name  was  a  synonym  for  that  mighty 
power  predicted  to  crush  the  tyrants  of  the  Goim, 
these  words  of  dire  disaster  and  desolation  be- 
speak the  complete  collapse  of  the  fortress  of  his 
faith  with  the  breaking  of  his  great  heart. 

The  fact  that  these  words  of  our  present  text 
are  in  the  Aramaic  of  the  first  century  and  were 
entirely  misunderstood  by  those  who  heard  them, 
as  the  Gospels  indicate,  only  goes  to  show  that 
the  majority  of  the  people  present  at  the  execu- 

1  In  Mark  14:66,  it  is  related  that  the  Peter  was  "be- 
neath" in  the  palace,  where,  according  to  Matt.  26:58,  he 
sat  with  the  servants  "  to  see  the  end." 


THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL  75 

tion  of  the  Son  of  Man  did  not  understand  the 
Aramaic  language.  As  Aramaic  was  the  every- 
day language  of  the  people  of  Jerusalem  at  that 
time,  it  follows  that  the  words  could  not  have  been 
spoken  in  the  environs  of  Jerusalem,  but  must 
have  been  uttered  in  another  country  in  which  a 
different  language  was  employed,  as  for  example, 
in  the  City  of  Rome,  which  was  actually  the  case 
as  we  show  elsewhere. 

It  is  also  stated  in  the  Gospels  that  not  only 
did  the  people  present  not  understand  the  Ara- 
maic lavia  sabachthani,  but  they  did  not  know 
what  was  meant  by  his  despairing  appeal  to  some- 
body. According  to  our  English  translations, 
the  croAvd  thought  the  despairing  cry  was  made 
to  Elijahu,  that  is,  Elijah,  although  the  word  used 
in  the  Greek  text  of  the  Gospels  is  neither  Elijahu 
of  the  Hebrew  nor  Eliou,  of  the  Septuagint,  but 
Helias.  Now,  Helios  was  a  god  whose  name  was 
well  known  to  the  Roman  mob,  for  it  is  another 
designation  for  Apollo,  the  far-darting  god  of  the 
Sun  {Helios)  to  whom  a  magnificent  temple  was 
then  standing  not  far  from  the  place  of  execution. 
The  crowd  evidently  thought  the  impalisaded  man 
was  appealing  for  help  to  Helios.  And  well  they 
might.  The  vocative  case  of  Helios,  namely 
Helie,  is  much  nearer  to  Helei,  the  first  word  of 
the  appeal,  according  to  the  orthography  of 
Tischendorf's  text,  than  to  Elijahu.  Moreover, 
praying  to  Elijahu,  or  Elijah,  had  gone  out  of 
fashion  among  orthodox  Jews,  and  one  of  such 


76  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  surely  was,  since  the  days  of 
Ezra,  in  spite  of  the  sacrifice  that  Vespasian  is 
said  to  have  offered  to  that  dethroned  deity  at  his 
ancient  shrine. 

Upon  hearing  this  cry  of  the  imprisoned  Son 
of  Man,  doubtless  uttered  after  the  executioner 
was  preparing  to  push  him  out  (anothein)  upon 
the  trap  door,  the  officer  in  charge  ran,  seized  a 
sponge,  which  he  steeped  in  a  stupefying  vinous 
mixture,  and  placing  it  upon  a  reed  —  perhaps 
the  very  reed  used  as  a  mock  scepter  for  "  the 
King  of  the  Jews  "  in  the  mock  triumph  —  and 
reaching  it  through  the  palings  put  it  upon  the 
lips  of  the  unhappy  prisoner.  Then  he  called 
out  to  the  menial  at  the  trap-door  cord,  "  Let 
go !  "  adding  with  brutal  humor  as  Simon  Bar 
Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man,  was  hurled  from  the  Tar- 
peian  Rock,  "  Let  us  see  if  Apollo  will  come  to 
help  him !  " 

By  a  singular  coincidence  the  fourteenth  and 
seventeenth  verses  of  the  Twenty-second  Psalm 
actually  outline  just  such  an  event.  To  better 
understand  the  matter  one  should  realize  that  the 
trap  door  opened  down  over  the  precipice,  swing- 
ing backward  toward  the  rock,  and  slanting  in 
the  process  of  opening  like  a  sluice.  The  pas- 
sages which  the  writers  of  the  Gospel  accounts  of 
the  execution  passed  over  by  selective  elimination 
read: 

I  am  poured  out  like  water,  and  all  my  bones  are 


References  .Conc\^6c<i  -.        Sqxn 

Simon -sto^Tje+o,  ^        ,  ^  .  'ei 

•Temple -RVOSyKmonom^^  ESA 

Temple  oKVpiTcrrTb+VicrorHeovenj  £^A 

__  03pT?o)inus-Thror>c-ViiCl*S?iI?evl<;.lT 

Throne  -  SccTcinple  orjopi+cr  CoptfeUnvj* 
Vcccll.o  SVietto,  ,  ei 


RoMfe 

At  IV^aTinoe  crT  4r)e 

Triomph  of  Tvtos 

»5f^owir)4  ■tb|C  Pnoc'P°\ro>r)Ta 
.tyiiacrjT  TolKe  Excctrtio 

"^ON    OF  Mah^ 
(,P)AR  GiBHORa). 


THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL  77 

scattered:  my  heart  is  melted  like  wax  into  the  midst 
of  my  entrails.   .   .   . 

They  may  number  all  my  bones. 

Thus  was  the  unhappy  victim  poured  out  like 
a  libation  to  the  Capitoline  Jupiter,  the  "  Heav- 
enly Father  "  of  the  Romans,  from  the  top  of  the 
Capitoline  Rock. 

Such  also  must  have  been  the  condition  of  the 
mangled  body  of  the  Son  of  Man  after  the  terrible 
plunge  through  the  air,  rebounding  from  a  pro- 
jecting ledge  and  again  striking  with  terrific  mo- 
mentum upon  the  rocks  at  the  bottom  of  the 
ab^'ss.  Crushed  to  a  jelly,  his  heart's  blood 
flowing  into  his  entrails,  his  bones  driven  in  all 
directions  through  his  flesh  or  torn  from  the  dis- 
membered body,  were  scattered  against  the  red- 
dened rocks  around.  In  very  truth,  this  was 
"  the  body  which  was  broken."  It  is  no  wonder 
that  the  hapless  man  uttered  a  last  shriek  of 
terror  as  the  trap  was  sprung  and  his  body  shot 
downward  headlong  to   that  horrible  death. 

The  conventional  account  of  the  execution  in- 
terjects the  foreign  incident  which  is  usually 
translated,  "  The  vail  of  the  temple  was  rent  in 
twain  from  top  to  the  bottom  (anothen  eos 
kato).^^  A  similar  expression,  anothein  auton 
Jcato,  signifies  "  to  push  him  down,"  most  prob- 
ably the  original  phrase.  In  line  with  this  the 
Mark  account  continues,  "  As  he  was  let  go 
{apheis)   the  Jesus  exhaled  a  great  shriek.     The 


78  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

downward  flight  [or  descent,  katapetasma^  from 
the  temple  was  broken  in  two."  The  Matthew 
says,  "  the  earth  shook,  rocks  were  rent  and 
graves  were  opened  " ;  perhaps  by  the  fall  of  a 
loose  ledge  of  tufa  rock  set  in  motion  by  the  im- 
pact of  the  descending  human  body  when  it  first 
struck  half  way  (Luke  23:45)  on  its  descent 
to  the  bottom  of  the  abyss. 

The  Greek  word,  katapetasma,  which  literally 
signifies  "downward  flight,"  (from  kata,  "down- 
ward," and  "  petasma"  "flight"),  is  usually 
translated  "the  vail"   (of  the  temple). 

A  later  writer  who  misunderstood  the  state- 
ment in  the  Matthew  that  the  earth  shook  with 
the  impact  of  the  fall  to  be  an  account  of  an 
earthquake  nowhere  else  in  any  history  recorded, 
adds  the  further  miraculous  story  that  when  the 
graves  were  opened  "  the  bodies  of  the  saints 
arose  " ;  but  a  still  later  editor,  who,  no  doubt, 
had  in  mind  that  the  resurrection  of  the  Jesus 
was  "  the  first  fruits  of  them  that  slept  "  ( 1  Cor. 
15:20),  added  the  cautious  phrase,  "after  the 
resurrection." 

At  the  foot  of  the  Tarpeian  Rock  there  were 
graves  of  unfortunates,  executed  as  was  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora,  and  for  similar  reasons.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  some  of  these  may  have  been  opened  by 
the  falling  tufa.  That  their  occupants  left  their 
graves,  and  what  was  the  eventual  fate  of  these 
resurrected  ones,  history,  outside  of  the  Matthew 
27 :  53j  has  failed  to  record. 


THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL  79 

The  story  of  the  execution  in  the  John  is  in 
many  points  contradictory  of  the  other  three 
Evangelists.  They  say  nothing  whatever  about 
the  presence  of  either  the  mythical  "  mother  "  or 
of  the  real  son,  the  Peter,  at  the  execution.  The 
John  positively  asserts  the  presence  of  the  one 
and,  inferentially,  that  of  the  other  also.  All 
four  agree,  however,  regarding  the  Amh,  the  gen- 
tle, broken-hearted  Magd-Helene.  It  is  very 
evident  that  the  introduction  of  the  "  mother," 
the  Am,  is  a  conflation  arising  out  of  the  state- 
ment that  the  Amh,  the  Magd-Helene,  was  there, 
who  all  agree  stood  with  passionate  devotion  near 
the  "  Lord  and  Master  "  even  unto  the  end. 

The  other,  "  Mary  of  Klopa,"  who  is  men- 
tioned by  the  John,  is  also  only  a  conflation,  a  re- 
flection of  the  faithful  Magd-Helene.  She  is  there 
said  to  have  been  a  sister  of  the  first  of  the 
"  three."  That  there  were  two  Marys  in  the 
same  family  is  prima  facie  absurd,  especially  at 
a  time  when  "  Mary "  was  not  yet  a  personal 
name  at  all.  Klopa  was  not  a  Jewish  name,  for 
as  such  it  exists  nowhere  else  in  Hebrew  literature. 
The  word  is  evidently  a  geographical  designation. 
The  letters  of  the  word  in  unpointed  Semitic  are 
Kip.  Kip  is  the  root  of  Klh,  or  "  Caleb."  This 
gives  us  '"the  Calebite,"  that  is,  the  '*  Syro- 
Phoenician  woman,"  the  "  Canaite,"  otherwise  the 
Magd-Helene  —  a  repetition. 

The  beloved  disciple  here  mentioned  by  the  John 
is  commonly  believed  to  be  the  Evangelist  John, 


80  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

and  without  any  other  reason  than  the  supposed 
modesty  of  the  EvangeHst  himself  in  seemingly 
suppressing  his  name.  Criticism,  however,  has 
shown  that  the  fourth  Gospel  was  not  written  by 
this  John,  and  speculation  then  arises  as  to  why 
the  identity  of  the  beloved  disciple  has  been  con- 
cealed. The  reason  is  that  in  the  Semitic  orig- 
inal a  single  word,  Jehid,  was  used.  This  term 
means  "  beloved,"  or  "  darling,"  and  is  invariably 
applied  to  an  only  son.  Some  editor  of  the  Greek 
text  of  the  John  supplied  the  word  "  disciple  "  in 
order  to  harmonize  the  John  in  this  matter  with 
the  other  three  writings  regarding  the  absence  of 
the  Peter  from  the  scene  of  his  father's  execution. 
Indeed,  the  omission  in  the  John  of  the  heart- 
rending cry  of  despair  which  the  other  Gos- 
pels report  in  Aramaic  was  doubtless  due  to  the 
belief  of  that  writer  that  the  "  Elei,"  or  the 
Peter,  had  not  forsaken  him  at  all,  the  fourth 
Evangelist  preferring  to  accept  an  independent 
tradition  of  the  execution  even  though  flatly  con- 
tradicted in  some  of  its  details  by  the  tradition 
recorded  in  the  other  Evangelists  (Mark  14:66; 
15:40). 

That  this  "  beloved,"  or  Jehid,  was  the  Peter, 
or  first-born  son,  is  evident  from  the  context  of 
the  John.  According  to  the  English  translation 
of  the  passage  herein  referred  to,  the  Son  of  Man 
is  quoted  as  saying,  "  Woman,  behold  thy  son." 
Why  he  did  not  say,  "  Mother,  behold  thy  son," 
if  the  person  addressed  were  really  his  mother,  is 


THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL  81 

a  question  that  has  arisen  in  many  minds.  Be- 
sides, such  a  salutation  would  much  more 
strongly  emphasize  the  relationship  of  mother 
and  son  upon  which  he  desired  that  emphasis 
should  be  laid.  The  word  used  in  Greek,  however, 
and  translated  "  woman,"  is  gune,  which  in  the 
vocative,  gunai,  nearly  always  signifies  "  wife." 
As  the  "  beloved  "  (Jehid)  was  a  son  by  a  pre- 
vious marriage,  and  the  gentle-souled  Magd- 
Helene  was  the  second  wife  —  perhaps  by  a  mysti- 
cal marriage  with  the  Son  of  Man  —  she  would  be 
a  legal  step-mother  of  the  Peter,  or  Eleazar,  whom 
she  met,  according  to  what  appears  to  have  been 
the  view  of  the  writer  of  the  John,  for  the  first 
time  upon  that  unspeakably  sad  occasion.  In 
this  light  we  can  better  understand  the  reason  for 
the  formal  introduction : 

"  Wife ;  this  is  thy  son :  " 

while  to  the  son  he  said  with  simplicity : 

"  This  is  thy  mother." 

Can  history  record  a  more  dramatic,  a  more 
tragic  introduction? 

Whether  this  incident  as  recorded  in  the  John 
be  accepted,  or  whether  it  be  rejected  because  it  is 
so  apparently  contradictory  of  the  other  three 
writings,  is  a  matter  of  minor  moment,  in  view  of 
the  light  it  throws  upon  the  family  relationship 
of  the  Son  of  Man. 

Josephus,  in  his  parsimonious  account  of  the 
tragic  ending  of  the  greatest  of  his  race,  remarks : 


82  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

"  Accordingly  ...  it  was  announced  .  .  .  that 
there  was  an  end  of  him  {telos  ecJion).^^  This 
proclamation  was  made  to  the  triumphal  assem- 
blage at  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus.  From 
these  words  of  Josephus  one  may  judge  that  this 
announcement  was  made  to  that  cosmopolitan 
throng  with  the  single  Greek  word,"  "  Tetelesta,i !  " 
"  he  is  finished,"  or,  "  it  is  finished,"  the  very  ex- 
pression which  the  John  19:30,  records  as  the 
last  word  of  the  Son  of  Man :  "  It  is  finished !  " 
The  writer  of  Revelation  16 :  17,  evidently  had  the 
same  incident  in  mind  when  he  wrote :  "  And 
there  came  a  great  voice  out  of  the  temple,  from 
the  throne,  saj^ing,  '  it  is  done ! '  " 

According  to  Revelation  11:8-11,  the  usual 
Roman  custom  of  exposing  the  sacrificial  body, 
thus  offered  to  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  upon  the 
street  of  stairs,  the  Scalae  Gemoniae,  before  the 
Mamertine  prison  for  several  days  was  followed 
also  in  the  case  of  the  execution  of  Simon  Bar 
Gi'ora  after  his  body  had  been  hurled  from  the 
Tarpeian  Rock  into  the  "  abyss,"  or  quarry,  at 
the  foot  of  the  Capitoline  ClifF  (Rev.  9:1-11) 
which  was  the  "  Hill  of  Destruction,"  the  Har 
Mageddon  of  the  Apocalypse,  a  term  derived  from 
the  Aramaic  gadah,  "  cut  down,"  "  broke,"  or 
"  destro^^ed,"  and  har,  a  "  hill  "  or  "  mountain." 

That  the  corpse  of  the  valiant  King  of  the  Jews 
was  thus  exposed  for  three  days  (Revelation 
11: 11)  is  also  borne  out  in  the  Gospels,  where  it 
is  recorded  that  the  sorrowing  wife  and  queen  of 


THE  PLACE  OF  A  SKULL  83 

the  Son  of  Man  (as  we  shall  show  later),  upon 
her  return  to  anoint  the  corpse,  found  it  had  been 
removed  from  its  gruesome  position  —  bringing 
from  her  the  lamentation :  "  They  have  taken 
away  my  husband  \^gibhora^  and  I  know  not  where 
they  have  laid  him."  If  we  believe  the  John 
(20:9)  that  at  that  time  the  companions  of  the 
Jesus  "  as  yet  knew  not  the  Scripture  that  he 
must  rise  again  from  the  dead  " —  implying  that 
there  was  then  no  such  doctrine  as  there  was  no 
such  scripture  —  we  must  presume  that  the  Ro- 
mans disposed  of  the  corpse  in  the  customary 
legal  manner. 

The  Talmud  is  authority  for  the  tradition  that 
the  Jesus,  the  "  crowned  "  (Stephanos),  was  first 
stoned  and  then  hanged.  To  hurl  a  living  vic- 
tim from  a  beetling  cliff,  down  upon  the  rugged 
rocks  and  stones,  was  a  common  mode  of  "  ston- 
ing." The  incident  of  the  hanging  was,  no  doubt, 
introduced   from   the  Gospels. 

That  the  Son  of  Man  constituted  the  sole  sac- 
rifice then  offered  by  the  Romans  as  "  a  propitia- 
tion for  the  sins  [defections  and  seditions]  of  the 
whole  world"  to  the  heavenly  father  (Ju-piter), 
after  which  the  emperor,  Vespasian,  built  a  tem- 
ple of  Peace  (Jos.  Wars  7,  5:7),  and  closed 
the  temple  of  Janus,  is  proven  from  Dion  Cassius, 
who  says  expressly,  "  with  the  rest  was  taken  their 
commander,  Simon  Bargioras ;  and  this  man  only 
was  punished  with  death  in  the  triumphs  "  (Lib. 
Ixvii,  ut  sup.  Ed.  Reimar,  tom.  ii,  p.  1081,  B). 


84  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

From  the  fact  that  the  names  of  the  two 
"  thieves  "  given  in  the  Apocrypha  (Evang. 
Nicod.  7:10;  Narrat.  Joseph,  c.  3)  as  Dimas 
(Midas)  or  Wealth,  on  the  right,  and  Gestas 
(Latin,  egestas)  or  Want,  on  the  left  of  the  de- 
feated insurgent  King  of  the  Jews,  are  allegorical, 
we  must  conclude  that  fancy  has  been  at  play  in 
the  Gospel  stories  as  well  as  in  tradition  concern- 
ing those  whom  John  described  as  "  two  other 
malefactors."  The  thieves  were,  no  doubt,  in- 
troduced into  the  narrative  as  usual  "  in  order 
that  the  Scripture  [Jeremiah  48:27]  might  be 
fulfilled." 


THE   BODY  WHICH  WAS   BROKEN 

"  In  the  creeping  progress  of  humanity  the  dead  have 
been  mocked  by  every  good  discovery;  there  has  been  noth- 
ing so  cruel  as  a  healing  success,  for  it  has  ever  been  too 
late  by  thousands  of  years." 

That  the  body  of  the  Son  of  Man  was  broken,  is 
plainly  averred  in  I  Cor.  11 :  24,  where  the  writer, 
relating  the  manner  of  the  institution  of  the 
Eucharist,  puts  these  words  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Son  of  Man :  "  Take,  eat :  this  is  my  body  which 
was  broken  for  you."  This  is  the  reading  of  all 
the  uncial  manuscripts.  The  breaking  of  the 
bread,  according  to  all  the  Synoptics  and  the 
Pauline  writings,  was  the  essential  part  of  the 
commemorative  ceremony. 

It  would  appear  that  the  account  of  the  break- 
ing of  the  body  of  the  Son  of  Man  has  been  elimi- 
nated from  the  Synoptic  narratives  thus  render- 
ing nugatory  the  act  of  commemoration  by  de- 
leting the  account  of  the  fact  to  be  commemo- 
rated. John  not  only  omits  the  story  of  the  in- 
stitution of  the  ceremony  commemorating  the 
breaking  of  the  body,  but  he  distinctly  declares 
the  body  was  not  broken.  He  however,  breaks 
the  bodies  of  the  "  lestai,"  or  insurrectionists  of 

85 


86  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  Synoptics,  who  develop  into  "  malefactors  " 
in  his  Jew-baiting  Gospel.  He  declares  the 
breaking  of  their  bones  was  done  in  a  conventional 
manner,  yet  a  convention  mentioned  by  no  other 
author  among  the  ancients.  This  he  did,  evi- 
dently to  blot  out  every  trace  of  identity  of  the 
real  Son  of  INIan.  But  he  disingenuously  re- 
marks :  "  These  things  came  to  pass  that  the 
Scripture  might  be  fulfilled,  '  A  bone  of  him  shall 
not  be  broken,'  "  quoting  apparently  from  the 
Thirty-fourth  Psalm,  which  says  of  any  righteous 
man,  "  He  keepeth  all  his  bones ;  not  one  of  them 
is  broken."  But  the  righteous  one  meant  in  this 
Scripture  could  not  be  the  Jesus,  for,  the  very 
next  verse  says  "  Yahweh  saveth  the  life  of  his 
servants,  and  none  of  them  that  take  refuge  in 
Yahweh  shall  be  condemned."  The  John  had  for- 
gotten in  his  zeal  the  main  messianic  prophecy, 
Isaiah  53,  in  which  it  is  said  "  the  man  of  sor- 
rows "  was  "  broken-in-pieces  [meduka;  LXX: 
memalakistai, —  crushed  into  a  jelly]  for  our 
iniquities,"  not  merely  "  bruised  for  our  iniqui- 
ties," as  it  is  generally  translated.  The  reason 
given  by  John  is,  therefore,  specious.  The  real 
reason  he  has  carefully  forborne  from  revealing. 
The  execution  of  the  defeated  general  of  the 
conquered  enemy  at  the  close  of  a  triumph  was 
more  a  religious  than  a  civil  or  a  military  act. 
The  conquered  king  or  commander  was  offered  as 
a  sacrifice  to  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  Jove,  the  Je- 
hovah of  the  Romans.     It  is  a  significant  fact  in 


THE  BODY  WHICH  WAS  BROKEN      87 

this  connection  that  the  Christian  Church  has  al- 
ways regarded  the  execution  of  the  Son  of  Man 
as  a  sacrifice  to  the  Heavenly  Father  (Jupiter, 
Djovis-pater,  or  Sky  Father),  which  was  indeed 
consummated  upon  Calvary,  or  Golgotha,  the 
Capit-olium,  the  Tarpeian  Rock.  In  the  faith 
of  the  faithful  this  same  body  is  even  now  daily 
offered  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  same  deity  in  every 
Catholic  church  throughout  the  world.  It  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  sacrifice  that  the  body  in  the 
fonii  of  unleavened  bread  be  broken  upon  a  rock, 
which  is  the  necessary  part  of  every  altar. 

In  earlier  days  not  only  was  the  general  of  the 
enemy  sacrificed,  but  he  was  eaten,  his  flesh  and 
blood  were  partaken  of  first  by  the  priest  and 
then  by  the  people,  as  part  of  the  sacrifice  to  their 
god.  When  man  ceased  to  eat  human  sacrifice, 
animals  were  offered  and  eaten.  In  I  Corin- 
thians 10  and  11,  we  find  the  offering  of  bread 
and  wine,  as  the  body  and  blood  of  the  Lord, 
spoken  of  as  a  sacrifice  in  the  accepted  sense  of 
that  word. 

The  ancients  never  offered  in  sacrifice  one  of 
their  number.  The  sacrificial  victim  was  always 
an  enemy.  It  remained  for  the  writer  of  the 
Pauline  Epistles  to  discover  that  the  Son  of  Man, 
whom  the  Romans  sacrificed,  was  actually  the 
very  son  of  the  god  to  whom  they  made  their  sacri- 
fice. The  sacrifice  of  a  Jew,  by  Jews,  to  the  god 
of  the  Jews, —  of  a  member  of  the  tribe,  by  the 
tribe,     to     the     tribal    god, —  would    be    utterly 


88  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

anomalous,  and  this  idea  is  manifestly  not  a  pri- 
mary but  a  secondary  development  of  Christian 
doctrine.  It  arose  among  the  Christians  of  the 
Uncircumcision  when  appeal  was  made  to  the  Gen- 
tile, or  Roman  world,  whence  it  became  fashion- 
able and  proselytizingly  profitable  to  cast  asper- 
sions upon  the  enemies  of  the  Roman,  and  to  make 
the  despised  and  defeated  Jew  the  scape-goat  of 
the  sins  of  Rome,  a  process  apparent  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  and  in  the  Pauline  Epistles,  so- 
called. 


XI 

JOSEPH  'ARA  MATHIAS  AND  VERONICA 
SEE  THE  BODY 

"  As  it  is  owned  that  the  whole  scheme  of  Scripture  is 
not  yet  understood;  so  if  it  ever  comes  to  be  understood, 
before  the  restitution  of  all  things,  and  without  miraculous 
interpositions,  it  must  be  in  the  same  way  that  natural 
knowledge  is  come  at  —  by  the  continuance  and  progress 
of  learning  and  liberty,  and  by  particular  persons  attend- 
ing to,  comparing  and  pursuing  intimations  scattered  up 
and  down  it;  which  are  overlooked  and  disregarded  by  the 
generality  of  the  world." —  Bishop  Butler. 

Flavius  Josephus,  in  his  earlier  years,  was 
known  by  his  Aramaic  name  of  Joseph  Bar  Mat- 
thaias,  dialectically  pronounced  Joseph  'ar  Ma- 
thaias,  the  "  B  "  in  "  Bar  "  being  aspirated,  that 
is,  practically  silenced,  and  as  peoples  who  trill 
or  thorouglily  sound  the  r  find  it  next  to  im- 
possible to  pronounce  an  m  immediately  after 
an  r  without  interjecting  between  these  liquids 
a  short,  indistinct  vowel,  a  correct  phonetic  rend- 
ering of  the  pronunciation  according  to  Greek 
literal  values  would  be  "  Joseph  Arimathaias," 
the  name  usually  rendered  in  English  texts  as 
"  Joseph  of  Arimathea."  Indeed  in  Syriac  the 
word  for  "  son  "  in  such  positions  was  actually 

written  "  bara."     There  is  no  place  called  Arima- 

89 


90  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

thaias,  or  Arimathea,  mentioned  by  any  Hebrew 
or  Gentile  writer.  It  is  possible  that  in  this  black 
traitor's  heart  of  Josephus  there  may  have  been 
left  a  few  drops  of  warm,  red  Jewish  blood,  and 
that  he  may  have  been  moved  by  a  real  feeling  for 
the  sad  fate  of  his  illustrious  but  humiliated 
countryman,  whose  broken  and  bleeding  body  he 
may  have  provided  with  fitting  sepulture,  as  re- 
lated in  the  Gospels. 

In  Rome  at  that  time  was  also  Berenike  (pro- 
nounced "  veraneeka,"  that  is,  "Veronica"),  the 
sister  of  Herod  Agrippa  II  and  favorite  of  Titus, 
her  country's  destroyer,  whom  only  political  con- 
siderations prevented  from  becoming  the  Empress 
of  Rome.  It  is  not  unlikely  there  is  some  truth 
in  the  story  of  the  apocryphal  Gospel  of  Nico- 
demus,  and  that  she,  too,  moved  by  pity  and  pa- 
triotic piety,  may  have  dipped  her  kerchief 
in  the  martyr's  blood,  or,  indeed,  mercifully 
spread  the  cloth  as  a  screen  over  the  mangled 
features  of  the  fallen  Son  of  Man. 

In  the  Mark  account  of  the  execution  the  say- 
ing of  a  centurion  is  considered  worthy  of  record. 
The  word  used  in  all  the  other  Gospels  for  cen- 
turion is  hekatontarchos,  but,  in  the  fifteenth 
chapter  of  the  Mark,  we  find  the  Latin  word 
Kenturion  employed.  In  other  words,  the  "  cap- 
tain of  a  hundred "  soldiers  was  among  Greek 
speaking  people  called  by  the  Greek  term,  and 
among  Latins  by  the  Latin  term.  It  is  natural 
to  conclude  that,  if  the  centurion  above  mentioned 


WITNESSES  OF  THE  BODY  91 

had  been  stationed  in  Judea,  where  Greek  was 
spoken,  he  would  be  a  "  hekatontarchos,"  while, 
in  Rome,  he  was  called,  as  Romans  called  him,  a 
"  centurion."  Verily,  the  speech  bewrayeth 
him! 

The  centurion  is  quoted,  in  our  English  testa- 
ments, as  saying,  "  Truly  this  man  was  the  Son 
of  God."  A  correct  literal  rendering  of  the 
Greek  is,  "  Truly  this  man  was  a  son  of  a  god." 
But  the  Syriac  version  uses  "  Gi'ora  "  for  the 
word  "  man,"  immediately  before  the  word  for 
"  son," —  "  bara."  By  reversing  this  order,  a 
correct  translation  of  the  Syriac  would  quote  the 
centurion  as  saying,  "  Truly,  this  Bar  Gi'ora  was 
of  God." 

In  that  cryptic  document,  the  Apocalypse  of 
the  New  Testament,  11:8,  there  is  a  reference  to 
"  the  great  city  which  spiritually  is  called  Sodom 
and  Egypt,  where  also  our  Lord  was  crucified." 
There  is  nothing  of  record  which  would,  even  re- 
motely, connect  the  names  of  Sodom  and  Egypt 
with  Jerusalem;  but  there  was  in  Rome  an  Egyp- 
tian temple  of  Isis,  where  sodomitic  rites  were  of- 
fered to  the  goddess,  and  it  was  before  the  city 
gate  near  this  temple  that  Titus  and  Vespasian 
were  encamped  the  night  before  their  triumphal 
entry  into  the  city,  as  is  stated  by  Josephus 
(Wars,  7:5,  4).  From  this  it  is  apparent  that 
the  author  of  the  Apocalypse  was  aware  that  it 
was  in  Rome,  not  in  Jerusalem,  that  the  Son  of 
Man  came  to  his  inglorious  end. 


XII 

EX  UNO  PLURES 

"  History,  whether  sacred  or  profane,  hides  her  teaching 
from  those  who  study  her  through  colored  glasses.  She 
only  reveals  truth  to  those  who  look  through  the  cold,  clear 
medium  of  passionless  inquiry,  who  seek  truth  without  de- 
termining first  the  masquerade  in  which  they  will  receive 
it." —  S.  Baring  Gould. 

After  the  execution  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  Rome 
and  the  dispersion  of  his  people  abroad  over  the 
Roman  Empire,  hundreds  —  even  thousands  —  of 
miles  away  from  the  scenes  of  his  struggles,  leg- 
end began  to  grow  in  the  scattered  groups  of  his 
compatriots  who  had  but  little  if  any  communi- 
cation with  one  another.  These  far-scattered 
groups  looked  upon  their  ideal  from  their  own 
individual  view-points,  and  wrote  down  in  various 
languages  their  several  impressions  of  that  mar- 
vellous man.  After  a  few  years  none  of  these 
groups  could  recognize  their  hero  in  the  others' 
pictures,  but  saw  only  a  certain  resemblance  to 
their  ow^n  which  they  accused  their  distant  breth- 
ren with  copying.  Thus  these  pen  portraits  have 
come  down  to  us  as  pictures  of  distinct  individuals 
with  such  varied  names  as  the  Jesus,  Stephanos, 
or   St.   Stephen,  Jesus   Barabbas,   Simon  Magus, 

Menandros,  Valentinus,  Simon  Bar  Chochab  and 

92 


EX  UNO  PLURES  93 

Appollonius  of  Tyana,  while  vicissitudes  of  trans- 
lation, accidental  interpolation,  and  conflation 
have  added  the  shadowy  reflections  that  pass  as 
Simon  the  Cyrenian,  Simon  Zelotes,  Simon  the 
Canaanite,  Simon  Iscariotes  or  Sicariotes,  Simon 
the  Tanner  and  Simon  the  Leper.  Thus,  by  a 
process  akin  to  that  known  in  biology  as  "  repro- 
duction by  fission,"  a  personality  breaks  up  into 
many  copies  of  itself  which  gradually  become 
differentiated  by  accretion  and  excision  into  dis- 
tinct individualities  in  the  popular  mind.  Not 
only  does  one  fact  diversely  recounted  take  its 
place  in  tradition  as  several  facts,  but  one  indi- 
vidual described  by  different  men  of  differing  view 
points  appears  as  a  multiplicity  of  distinct  in- 
dividuals. Folk  lore  is  filled  with  many  such  in- 
cidents. The  apocryphal  gospels  furnish  many 
such  examples,  and  the  canonical  gospels  show  us 
several  instances  of  the  process  of  reduplication, 
of  the  same  character  gradually  differentiating 
into  separate  personalities,  just  as  the  Gospels 
have  duplicated  episodes  until  these  are  repeated 
as  distinct  events.  Witness  the  two  cleansings  of 
the  temple,  two  miraculous  draughts  of  fishes,  two 
sites  for  the  great  sermon,  the  two  miraculous 
feedings  of  the  thousands,  two  sites  for  the  as- 
cension, the  two  demoniacs  in  the  cemetery,  two 
anointings  by  Mar}^  two  different  genealogies, 
two  stories  of  Judas,  and  so  forth. 

The  story  of  the  releasing  of  Barabbas  takes 
its  place  with  these.     A  close  study  of  the  text 


94  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

will  show  that  "  Barabbas  "  is  but  another  name 
for  the  Son  of  Man.  The  personality  of  Bar- 
abbas grew  out  of  the  indistinct  penmanship  of  a 
scribe.  In  Hebrew  the  A:  and  the  b  are  very  much 
alike,  as  there  is  but  a  small  difference  in  the  for- 
mation of  the  base  lines  of  these  letters.  With 
the  slightest  carelessness  in  transcribing,  the 
name  Borach  or  Boraka  would  become  Baraba  or 
Barabba,  and  hence  the  Greek  form  Barabbas. 
Both  Barabbas  and  Bar  'ibhorach  were  "  insurrec- 
tionists "  and  both  were  "  released  to  the  multi- 
tude "  in  the  Gospel  story.  An  additional  cor- 
roboration of  this  view  is  the  reading  of  the  Sin- 
aitic  Syrian  manuscript  which  gives  the  title  "  the 
Jesus  "  or  "  the  Liberator  "  to  Barabbas  also. 

It  is  stated  in  the  Matthew  account  that  this 
Baraba  (Baraka)  was  a  "notable  prisoner,"  who, 
Mark  says,  had  taken  part  in  "  the  insurrection," 
although  no  mention  is  made  anywhere  else  in  the 
text  of  any  "  insurrection." 

The  Praelatus,  before  whom  the  Son  of  Man 
was  given  the  form  of  a  Roman  trial  —  the  Ro- 
mans were  sticklers  for  formality  —  evidently  felt 
it  befitting  the  festive  occasion  of  a  Roman  Tri- 
umph to  have  his  little  pleasantry  with  the  ribald 
Roman  mob,  and  so  he  inquired  of  them  whether 
he  should  turn  over  to  them  the  Jesus,  the  Baraka, 
or  the  Jesus,  "  the  King  of  the  Jews,"  that  is, 
the  "  notable  prisoner "  as  Baraka,  the  blas- 
phemer against  Jupiter  under  religious  condem- 


EX  UNO  PLURES  95 

nation,  or  as  the  King  of  the  Jews  under  civil  and 
military  sentence. 

To  treat  the  prisoner  as  the  King  of  the  Jews, 
of  course,  appeals  more  to  the  ragamuffins,  for  as 
such  they  could  set  up  for  him  a  mock  triumph  in 
humorous  contrast  with  the  stately  triumph  of  the 
Flavians.  The  ragamuffin  section  of  a  parade 
has,  even  to  this  day,  lost  none  of  its  appeal  to 
the  rabble's  sense  of  humor. 

So  the  Baraka,  or  religious  convict,  was  forgot- 
ten for  the  time  in  the  rollicking  mockery  of  the 
mob,  for  the  poor,  humiliated,  broken-hearted 
King  of  the  Jews. 

Similarly  the  story  of  Simon  the  Cyrenian 
sprang  up.  The  Mark,  the  oldest  extant  source 
of  the  tradition,  is  translated  as  follows  in  the 
common  version : 

"  And  they  compel  one  Simon,  a  Cyrenian,  who 
passed  by,  coming  out  of  the  country,  the  father  of 
Alexander  and  Rufus,  to  take  to  his  cross."  ^ 

"  Cyrenian  "  in  Hebrew  is  "  Kurini."  This  is 
easily  mistaken  for  "  Kirinu  " — "  our  fortress," 
a  title  not  unbefitting  the  brave  defender  of  the 
Holy  City.     Attention  should  again  be  called  to 

1  The  phrase,  "  his  cross,"  as  it  stands  in  the  common  text, 
refers  logically  and  grammatically  to  "  the  Cyrenian's 
cross."  As  there  is  nowhere  else  any  accoimt  of  a  Cyre- 
nian having  been  condemned  at  this  particular  time,  the 
sentence  is  not  comprehensible  until  we  correctly  identify 
"  the  Cyrenian." 


96  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  fact  that  the  i  and  the  u  in  Hebrew  are  sim- 
ilar in  form  and  differ  only  in  length ;  "  passed 
by "  is  in  Hebrew  "  ghbor,"  "  coming  out "  is 
"  ghi'or  " ;  "  country  "  is  "  galil  "  which  also 
means  "  Gahlee  " ;  "  father  "  is  "  ab,"  while  "  aib  " 
is  "  foeman,"  With  these  facts  in  mind,  the  verse 
from  Mark  might  be  reconstructed  so  as  to 
read, — 

"  And  they  force  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Galilean 
[or  Zealot],  the  foeman  of  Alexander  and  Rufus,  to 
take  to  his  cross !  " 

a  sad  side-commentary  on  how  lowly  the  mighty 
one  had  fallen. 

Who  were  Alexander  and  Rufus,  his  foemen? 
Tiberias  Alexander  and  Terentius  Rufus,  the  two 
foremost  generals  under  Titus  at  the  siege  of 
Jerusalem.  There  are  no  other  Alexander  and 
Rufus  in  all  time  whose  names  can  be  linked  to- 
gether in  Jewish  history.  That  a  Jewish  parent 
bearing  the  distinctively  Hebrew  name  of  Simon 
should  depart  so  far  from  his  ancestral  customs 
as  to  give  one  of  his  sons  a  Greek  and  the  other 
a  Latin  name  is,  certainly,  more  possible  than 
probable.  Men  are  usually  identified  through 
their  fathers,  but  the  common  version  violates  all 
tradition  by  identifying  the  father  through  two 
sons  whose  own  identities  have  not  been  estab- 
lished or  have  disappeared  forever  from  the  pages 
of  human  history. 

Simon  the  Zealot,  that  is,  Simon  Zelotes,  is,  in- 


EX  UNO  PLURES  97 

deed,  none  other  than  Simon  the  Zealot  par  ex- 
cellence, the  Master  Zealot,  whose  fiery  zeal 
burned  vainly  against  the  Romans.  Simon  the 
chief  of  that  band  of  Zealots,  a  Zelotes,  also  a 
Sicarius  or  Sicariotes,  and  who  is  named  Simon 
Iskariotes  in  the  John  6:71;  12:4;  13:2  and 
26,  in  several  manuscripts, —  Tischendorf  has 
adopted  this  reading  in  his  authoritative  text  — 
was  none  other  than  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of 
Man. 

Simon  the  Tanner  is,  there  is  little  doubt,  an- 
other variant.  There  is  no  single  word  in  the 
Hebrew  scriptures  which  is  the  exact  equivalent 
for  the  Greek  burseus,  a  tanner.  But  the  Hebrew 
words  bara  ghor,  "  to  make  leather,"  give  us 
fairly  good  play  on  the  name  of  the  greatest  gen- 
eral of  the  Jews. 

Simon  the  Leper,  mentioned  in  Mark  14:  3,  ap- 
pears in  the  Syriac  text  as  "  Shimon  Girwa" 
which  is  about  as  close  as  a  scribe  slightly  weak 
on  orthography,  would  be  expected  to  get  to  the 
name  Shimon  Giwora  or  Gi'ora. 


XIII 
SIMON  MAGUS,  THE  SON  OF  MAN 

The  most  famous  by  far  of  all  the  duplications 
of  the  Son  of  Man  is  Simon  Magus.  Unable  to 
recognize  their  Lord  and  Master,  the  Son  of  Man, 
in  the  Son  of  Power,  when  his  name  was  translated 
into  another  language,  his  disciples  have  turned 
upon  him  like  soldiers  fighting  their  fellows  by 
mistake.  The  followers  of  the  apotheosized  Bar 
Gi'ora  have  attacked  him  in  his  foreign  or  trans- 
lated name,  and  have  treated  him  as  an  outlander 
and  a  heretic, —  indeed,  the  master  of  all  heretics. 

Simon  Megas  would  be  the  Greek  equivalent  of 
Simon  Gi'ora.  Careless  orthography  coupled  with 
a  primitive  weakness  for  the  marvellous,  easily 
turned  the  "  Megas  "  into  "  Magos,"  which  in  it- 
self was  suggestive  of  the  magic  arts.  Moreover, 
the  Persian  Magos  is  from  the  same  Indo-Euro- 
pean root  as  the  Greek  Megas  and  the  Latin 
Magis,  whence  comes  Magister,  or  Master,  "  the 
greater  one,"  the  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew 
"  Rabbi." 

The  religious  system  of  Simon  Magus  was,  ap- 
parently, the  first  attempt  at  the  apotheosis  of 
Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  national  hero  of  the  Jews. 

Paul,  the  reputed  author  of  the  Epistles  bearing 

98 


SIMON  MAGUS,  SON  OF  MAN        99 

his  name  in  the  New  Testament,  has  the  further 
repute  of  being  the  author  of  the  Simonian  system 
—  at  least,  tradition  so  accuses  him.  Granting 
the  truth  of  this,  it  would  appear  to  be  Paul's  first 
attempt  to  found  a  religious  system  on  the  per- 
son of  the  great  Jewish  hero.  What  the  doc- 
trines of  Simon,  the  Magus,  really  were,  if  he 
really  had  been  a  maker  of  doctrines,  it  is  diffi- 
cult at  this  distance  of  time  to  say,  from  the  mass 
of  vituperation  heaped  upon  him  by  the  early 
Christian  Fathers  who,  unable  to  see  in  their  own 
religion  the  second  edition  of  Simonism,  regarded 
Simon  as  a  counterfeit  of  the  original  Son  of 
Man.  Many  of  the  doctrines  ascribed  to  Simon 
are  those  commonly  considered  Christian.  His 
followers  believed  him  to  be  the  Messiah,  in  short, 
the  Deity  himself  who  had  come  in  human  form 
upon  the  earth.  They  taught  a  trinitarian  doc- 
trine, though  it  would  appear  that  it  was  the  re- 
sult of  a  synthesis.  Simon  was  worshipped  first 
in  Samaria  as  the  Son,  in  Judea  as  the  Father, 
and  among  the  Greek-speaking  world,  as  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Hippolytus  gives  us  a  condensa- 
tion of  the  Simonian  teachings.  That  Church 
Father,  writing  in  the  third  century,  says,  in  his 
"  Refutation  of  All  Heresies  " : 

"  Simon  [Magus']  affirmed  himself  to  be  the  Power 
[Gi'ora'}  above  all  things."  "  Now  Simon,  .  .  . 
paraphrasing  the  law  of  Moses,  .  .  .  asserts  that 
God  is  a  '  burning  and  consuming  fire  '  "  [Ish. 
The  same  Hebrew  letters  mean  also  "  Man,"  that  is. 


100  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

"  Gi'ora,"  in  Aramaic]  And  Simon  denominates 
the  originating  principle  of  the  universe  as  an  indefi- 
nite Power  [Gi'ora],  expressing  himself  thus:  '  This 
is  a  treatise  of  a  revelation  of  the  vocal  Sound 
[Shimeon,  hearing]  and  the  name  \^Shein'\  by  means 
of  intellectual  apprehension  and  of  the  great  indefi- 
nite Power  [^Gi'ora],  wherefore  it  will  be  sealed  and 
kept  secret.  The  Word  of  the  Lord  Abideth  forever. 
The  word  of  the  Lord  is  a  Logos.'  " 

St.  Jerome  quotes  Simon  as  saying:  "I  am 
the  Word   of  God"    {"Ego  sum  sermo  Dei"). 

Now  this  indefinite  Power,  Gi'ora,  which  is 
Fire,  sent  forth  by  two  and  two  (See  Mark  6:7) 
Twelve  Emanations  divided  into  three  two-fold 
sets  of  twos,  or  four  trinities,  as  follows : 

1.  Perception  Enlightment. 

{Ha   raah)  {'orah) 

Heaven  Earth 

{Shimai/n)  {Orah) 

2.  Vocal  Sound  Name 

{Shimeon)  {Shem) 

Sun  Moon 

{Shmsh)  {lorah) 

3.  Ratiocination  Reflection 

{Heshw)  {Ha  Shu) 

Air  Water 

{Ha  Roah  — "  Air  {lorah  — "  Water  in 

in  motion.")  motion.") 

Set  within  parentheses  above  are  the  Semitic 
equivalents  for  each  of  the  Twelve  Emanations  to 


SIMON  MAGUS,  SON  OF  MAN      101 

show  more  clearly  the  crypticism  of  the  system, 
each  word  being  a  partial  homophone  of  Simon 
(Shimon)  or  Gi'ora  (with  the  initial  G  aspirated, 
or  silenced,  as,  doubtless  was  usual),  or  of  Ha 
leshua,  "  the  Jesus,"  or  "  the  Liberator." 

While  these  Twelve  Emanations  may  have  been 
satisfactory  to  Greek  minds  steeped  in  Platonic 
Ideas  and  Archetypes,  they  were  less  palatable  to 
the  practical  Jews,  who  demanded  something  more 
tactile,  something  that  could  be  seen  and  touched ; 
so  the  second  edition  of  the  system  not  merely 
personified  these  ideas,  but  actually  incarnated 
them,  and  the  Twelve  Emanations  (Latin 
Emanate,  to  give  out  from)  that  were  sent  out 
from  the  great  Power  (Gi'ora),  reappeared  as 
Twelve  Apostles  (Greek,  Apo-stellein,  to  send 
forth)  of  flesh  and  blood,  sent  out  from  the  same 
power. 

It  is  significant  that  the  four  lists  of  the  Apos- 
tles given  in  the  New  Testament  have  only  a 
trifle  more  agreement  than  the  two  tables  of 
genealogies  of  the  Liberator.  Most  of  the  Apos- 
tles are  mentioned  but  once  and  are  never  heard 
of  again  outside  of  the  writings  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  Church  of  the  first  three  Christian  cen- 
turies. 

A  Simonian  called  Valentinus  (from  Valeo,  to 
have  Power, —  Gi'ora)  is  credited  with  giving  a 
slightly  changed  list  of  the  principal  Roots  of 
Simon,  namely  the  Mind,  the  Word,  the  Truth, 
the  Life,  the  Man  and  the  Church.     It  requires 


102  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

no  deep  investigation  to  find  these  roots  reflected 
in  the  authorized  Gospels  of  Christianity  in  such 
sayings  as  "  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the 
Life." 

The  Ante-Nicene  Fathers  are  filled  with  tales 
of  miracles  wrought  by  this  Simon,  of  the  sick 
whom  he  healed,  the  dead  he  brought  to  life. 
Even  more  wonderful  are  the  deeds  he  wrought 
than  any  recorded  in  the  canonical  Gospels  of  the 
Church. 

Simon,  some  of  the  Fathers  say,  could  change 
himself  into  the  likeness  of  any  one ;  he  could  ap- 
pear wherever  he  pleased ;  like  the  post-resurrec- 
tion Jesus,  he  could  walk,  not  merely  on  water, 
but  on  air.  He  could  make  a  sickle  reap  without 
touching  it,  in  the  manner  of  Rev.  14:16.  He 
could  not  merely  wither  trees  with  a  curse,  but 
could  make  them  spring  up  suddenly  out  of  the 
ground.  He  could,  with  impunity  fling  hhnself 
down  high  precipices.  He  could  walk  through 
the  streets  with  a  body-guard  of  ghosts.  In  all 
of  these  miracles  the  Fathers  had  as  much  faith 
as  in  those  recorded  in  the  Gospels. 

Simon  Magus  is  said  to  have  been  a  native  of 
Samaria,  born  in  Gitta  about  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era,  and  this  fact  may  throw  some  light 
on  the  identity  of  the  Good  Samaritan.  Inciden- 
tally, it  may  be  said,  in  reference  to  the  person 
rescued  by  this  "  man  of  Samaria,"  as  the  Syriac 
text  has  it,  that  he  fell  not  among  "  thieves  "  but 
amid  "  lestai,"  the  very  word  that  Josephus  used 


SIMON  MAGUS,  SON  OF  MAN      103 

for  the  Jewish  insurrectionists.  Had  it  meant 
"  thieves  "  instead  of  undisciplined  Jewish  soldiers 
hostile  to  Rome,  the  Syriac  would  not  have  used, 
as  it  does,  the  Greek  word  "  lestai  "  thereby  ac- 
cepting the  term  in  its  technical  sense,  but,  in- 
stead, it  would  have  employed  the  Semitic  word 
for  "  thieves."  The  price  this  "  Gi'ora  of  Sa- 
maria "  gave  the  innkeeper,  two  denarii,  was  the 
regular  daily  wage  of  a  soldier. 

There  are  two  versions,  in  the  hostile  writings 
of  the  fathers,  of  the  end  that  befell  Simon. 
One,  through  which  shines  the  real  historical  ac- 
count of  the  death  of  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  tells  of 
his  ascension  into  the  air  upon  a  cloud,  the  usual 
vehicle  of  ascension  in  legends  made  at  a  time  when 
clouds  were  thought  to  be  composed  of  sterner 
stuff  than  we  now  know  them  to  contain.  Out- 
doing the  Apostles  by  his  Mighty  Works,  even  as 
Pharaoh's  magicians  surpassed  Moses  and  Aaron 
—  for  none  of  them  save  Paul  had  ever  ascended 
into  the  empyrean  —  Simon  was  gliding  over 
Rome  when  Peter  prayed  against  him,  exorcised 
the  spirit  ex  machina  from  his  Elijah-like  chariot, 
and  Simon  fell  to  the  ground  in  the  Roman  forum, 
breaking  his  thighs.  Another  reflection  of  the 
fate  of  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  is  the  statement  of 
Arnobius  that  a  favorite  feat  of  Simon  Magus  was 
to  fling  himself  down  from  the  gable  of  a  lofty 
building.  It  does  not  require  very  keen  penetra- 
tion to  see  herein  an  elaborated  story  of  the 
flight  of  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  as  he  was  hurled  from 


104  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the    Tarpeian    Rock    beside    the    Roman   Forum. 

The  Talmud,  in  the  Toledoth  Jeschu,  contains 
a  peculiar  version  of  the  episode  of  the  magical 
flight  of  Simon  Magus  and  his  fall  at  the  prayer 
of  the  Peter.  The  notable  features  of  the  Tal- 
mud account  are  the  names  of  the  persons  in  the 
story.  Simon  Magus  it  calls  Jeschu,  and  the 
Peter  it  names  lehudah,  or  Judas,  two  facts  which 
will  be  found  proven  herein.  But  the  matter  of 
the  real  identification  of  the  persons  of  this  an- 
cient tradition  is  about  the  only  valuable  point 
the  Talmud  story  contains. 

Another  ancient  legend  runs  that  Simon  de- 
clared, if  buried,  he  would  rise  again  in  three 
days ;  that  he  was  buried,  and  he  is  still  fast 
asleep  in  the  pulseless  heart  of  the  hills.  As  all 
pro-Simonian  literature  has  been  destroyed  by  the 
orthodox,  it  is  more  than  likely  if  some  of  it  had 
by  any  chance  escaped,  it  would  be  found  to  con- 
tain ample  evidence  establishing  not  only  Simon's 
resurrection,  but  his  ascension  bodily  beyond  the 
loftiest  heights  the  most  substantial  cloud  could 
carry  him,  through  the  regions  of  absolute  zero 
and  airless  vacua  to  his  celestial  home,  though, 
even  at  this  writing  and  at  this  distance  of  time, 
he  would  have  scarcely  begun  his  inter-stellar 
journey  to  his  glorious  goal. 

It  is  related  in  the  writings  attributed  to 
"  Justin  Martyr  "  and  adressed  to  the  emperor 
Antoninus  Pius  that  Simon  "  was  considered  a 
god  in  your  imperial  city  of  Rome,  and  he  was 


SIMON  MAGUS,  SON  OF  MAN       105 

honored  by  you  with  a  statue  as  a  god  on  the 
Island  of  the  Tiber,  between  the  two  bridges, 
which  had  the  superscription  in  Latin,  '  Simoni 
Deo  Sancto;  (To  the  Holy  God  Simon)." 

More  recent  writers  have  sought  to  discredit 
this  statement.  They  are  convinced  that  the 
statue  which  he  saw  was  one  erected  to  Semo  San- 
cus,  and  inscribed  "  Semoni  Sanco  Deo  "  the  Sa- 
bine deity  who  presided  over  judicial  tribunals, 
the  guardian  god  of  the  true  witnesses,  the  Zeus 
Pistos,  according  to  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus. 

Justin  Martyr,  who  is  said  to  have  been  a 
highly  educated  man,  a  teacher  of  philosophy ; 
successively  a  Stoic,  a  Peripatetic,  a  Pythago- 
rean, a  Platonist ;  a  man  of  the  Latin  race, 
though  born,  like  Simon,  in  Samaria ;  a  controver- 
sialist who  disputed  with  the  Latin  philosopher 
Crescens  —  it  is  not  probable,  hardly,  indeed,  pos- 
sible,—  that  he  would  know  so  little  Latin  as  to 
mistake  the  words  of  an  inscription  to  the  Sabine 
god  Semo  Sancus  for  a  dedication  to  Simon,  the 
"  Son  of  Power,"  or  "  Son  of  Man."  It  is  very 
unlikely  that  a  philosopher  whose  boast  is  exact- 
ness in  statements  of  facts,  should,  by  his  care- 
lessness in  such  important  matters,  make  him- 
self ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  one  whom  he  had  so 
earnestly  endeavored  to  persuade  by  cogent  rea- 
soning in  doctrinal  matters,  and  whose  favorable 
opinion  he  sought  to  win,  a  Roman  who  could  as 
readily  read  the  simple  Latin  inscription  as  could 
Justin    the    Witness,    himself.     The    only    other 


106  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

hypothesis  consistent  with  the  facts  is  that  Justin 
knew  the  real  meaning  of  the  inscription  and  de- 
liberately perpetrated  a  pious  fraud,  which  is  un- 
tenable from  the  Christian  point  of  view. 


XIV 
MAGUS  AND  THE  MAGD-HELENE 

"  The  only  way  of  satisfactorily  establishing  the  truth 
of  any  alleged  fact  is  by  showing  it  to  be  in  harmony  with 
all  admitted  facts." —  Furness. 

Irenaeus  says  of  Simon  Magus :  "  This  man 
was  glorified  by  many  as  God;  he  taught  that  it 
was  he  who  appeared  in  Judea  as  the  Son,  in  Sa- 
maria as  the  Father,  and  to  the  Gentiles  as  the 
Holy  Ghost.  He  represented  himself  as  being  the 
highest  of  all  Powers  [Gi'ortw],  that  is,  the  Being 
who  is  father  of  all. 

"  Having  redeemed  from  slavery  at  Tyre  a  cer- 
tain woman  named  Helene,  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
taking  her  around  with  him,  declaring  she  was 
the  first  Concept  (ennoia)  of  his  mind,  the  Mother 
of  all  by  whom  in  the  beginning  he  conceived  in 
his  mind  the  fonnation  of  angels  and  archangels." 

The  Semitic  for  Mind,  or  the  faculty  of  per- 
ception, is  "  Ha  liaah,"  from  which  is  derived  the 
equivalent  for  the  Greek  "  ennoia,"  "  Mareah," 
the  passive  form  of  the  root,  which  would  be  rend- 
ered into  Greek  phonetics  as  "  Maria,"  for  which 
in  English  we  have  "  Mary." 

According  to  Hippolytus  there  was  in  Rome  an 
image  of  Simon  fashioned  as  Jove,  and  one  of 
107 


108  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Helene,  as  Minerva,  and  many  revered  these 
statues  very  much :  the  one  they  called  "  Our 
Lord"  and  the  other  "  Our  Lady."  Minerva, 
whom  the  Greeks  st3ded  the  "  Parthenos,"  or  the 
"  Virgin,"  and  in  whose  honor  the  Parthenon  was 
built,  was  the  guardian  goddess  of  the  Homeric 
Helene  of  Troy. 

Simon  is  said  to  have  represented  this  Helene 
of  Tyre  to  be  the  very  Helene  of  Troy.  It  is 
said  that  Simon  redeemed  her  from  an  impure  life 
in  Tyre,  which  is,  perhaps,  no  more  than  saying 
he  found  her  a  priestess  of  some  Tyrian  cult;  for, 
to  the  Jews,  all  forms  of  worship  save  the  worship 
of  Yahweh,  were  deemed  forms  of  impurity.  The 
charge  in  the  Gospels  that  the  Magd-Helene  was 
an  impure  woman  sprang,  doubtless,  from  the  same 
Semitic  confusion  of  ritualistic  with  moral  clean- 
liness. It  is  highly  inconceivable  that  a  woman 
of  such  moral  sweetness,  gentleness,  depths  of  de- 
votion and  purity  of  affection  could  have  evolved 
from  a  creature  of  coarseness,  grossness  and 
bestiality. 

Simon  is  said  to  have  called  Helene  the  "  lost 
sheep."  In  John  10,  we  find  the  Jesus  referring 
to  himself  as  the  "  Good  Shepherd  (Roah  Chased, 
a  good  play  on  Roah  Cadesh — "Holy  Spirit") 
who  giveth  his  life  for  his  sheep ;  "  and  in  Matthew 
18,  "  he  leaveth  the  ninety  and  nine,"  and  "  goeth 
into  the  mountains  and  seeketh  "  the  "  lost  sheep." 

In  Mark  7,  where  the  expression  "  the  lost 
§heep  "  evidently  has  been  deleted  (compare  Mat- 


MAGUS  AND  THE  MAGD-HELENE      109 

thew  15:  21-28  with  Mark  7:  24-30),  the  scene  is 
laid  in  Tyre,  the  city  in  which  Simon  met  Helene. 
The  Mark  there  says,  according  to  the  authorized 
version,  "  and  arising  [^anastas,  Heb.  Ghorah,  that 
is,  Gi'ora]  retired  to  the  outskirts  of  Tyre " 
where  he  "  entered  an  house  and  would  have  no 
man  know  it ;  but  he  could  not  be  hid."  The 
Greek  text  reads  "  entered  the  house,"  and  this 
may  mean  "  entered  the  temple,"  for  in  Semitic 
"  hayith  "  is  a  term  for  both  "  house  "  and  "  tem- 
ple." Continuing,  the  common  text  reads,  "  for 
a  certain  woman  whose  daughter  had  an  unclean 
spirit,  came  and  fell  at  his  feet.  The  woman  was 
a  Greek  \^Hellenis'\  a  Syro-Phoenician."  The 
Syriac  text  has,  for  "  little  daughter,"  bartha, 
which  is  easily  confounded  with  the  Semitic 
harali,  "  beloved,"  from  wliich  root  bartha  is 
most  probably  derived.  Without  doing  any  vio- 
lence to  the  text,  we  may  obtain  the  translation : 
"  for  a  w^oman,  his  beloved,  who  had  an  unclean 
spirit,  came  and  fell  at  his  feet.  The  woman  (or 
his  '  wife ')  was  Helene  of  the  purple  robe." 
"  Helene  of  the  flowing  robe  of  purple,"  is  a  fa- 
vorite phrase  of  Homer. 

When  requested  to  cast  out  the  evil  spirit  the 
Jesus  is  said  to  have  declared  "  It  is  not  meet  to 
take  the  bread  of  the  Children  and  to  cast  it  to 
Dogs"  (Calebim).  This  was,  perhaps,  intended 
as  a  play  upon  the  word  "  Calebim,"  for  the 
Tyrians  were,  according  to  Jewish  story,  descend- 
ants of  Caleb,  one  of  the  spies,  whose  dominions 


110  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

extended  into  Ancient  Asher.  The  LXX  actually 
translates  the  name  Caleb  (I  Sam.  25:3),  as 
Kunikos  or  "  dog-like."  ^  Moreover,  the  Greek 
text  of  the  Gospel,  gives  the  diminutive  form 
kunariois.  This  is  also  a  form  of  the  very  word 
which  the  Homeric  Helene,  in  deep  humiliation, 
applies  to  herself  (Iliad  6:344  and  356),  al- 
though the  translators,  with  one  accord,  omit  the 
word  in  their  translations. 

In  Matthew  15,  we  have  the  same  incident  as 
that  recorded  in  Mark  7.  Matthew  declares  she 
was  a  "  woman  of  Canaan."  This  is  evidently  a 
copyist's  error  for  a  woman  of  "  Cana ;  "  for,  at 
the  period  of  the  occurrence  "  Canaan  "  was  as 
archaic  a  term  as  "  Gaul  "  is  today. 

Bunson  thinks  the  declaration  attributed  to 
Simon  that  he  was  first  announced  in  Samaria  as 
the  Son  of  God,  is  an  allusion  to  the  conversation 
with  the  Woman  of  Samaria  (John  4).  She, 
too,  suffers  in  reputation  from  a  slur  similar  to 
that  cast  at  the  gentle  Magdalene. 

It  is  the  common  custom  to  derive  the  name  of 
Magdalene  from  Magdala,  a  supposed  city  of 
Galilee,  a  place  nowhere  mentioned  in  all  Jewish 
literature,  and  apparently  invented  to  give  a  folk 
etymology    to   the   word   Magdalene.     It  is    true 

1 A  parallel  instance  of  translating  a  name  from  one 
language  into  another  is  that  of  the  Median  woman  Sparko, 
who  reared  Cyrus  the  elder.  Her  name  which  also  means 
"  dog "  was  translated  into  Greek  as  Kuno  and  then  trans- 
literated into  Latin  as  Cyno. 


MAGUS  AND  THE  MAGD-HELENE   111 

Mag-dala  is  given  in  the  Authorized  Version  of 
Matthew  15:39,  but  the  Revised  Version  gives 
"  Magadan  "  and  this  is  likewise  the  almost  unan- 
imous voice  of  the  editors  of  all  the  other  rendi- 
tions uninfluenced  by  the  English  Authorized  text. 

The  correct  et^'mology  of  "  Magdalene "  ap- 
pears to  be  "  Magad,"  or  "  Ma^c?-Helene," — 
"  glorious  Helcne,"  apparently  a  Semitic  trans- 
lation of  the  "  Argeia  Helene,"  which  Homer  uses 
with  a  consciousness  of  the  two-fold  meaning  of 
"  Argos,"  namely,  "  bright  "  and  "  Greece,"  and 
which  Pope  and  other  translators  have  rendered 
both  as  "  bright  Helen  "  and  "  Argive  Helen." 

The  Grecian  Helene  had  two  brothers,  as  is  gen- 
erally known,  Castor  and  PoUux, — 

"  Helenae  fratres,  lucida  sidera," 

as  Horace  says,  "  brothers  of  Helen,  bright 
stars."  They  were  otherwise  called  the  "  Dios- 
kouroi,^" — "  sons  of  god,"  who  were  placed  by 
their  heavenly  parent,  Jove,  among  the  stars,  as 
the  constellation  Gemini,  and  were  known  to  the 
Greeks  as  theoi  soteroi,  or  "  savior  gods."  It 
was  under  the  sign  of  these  patron  gods  of  mar- 
iners, the  Acts  say,  Paul  sailed  from  Malta  to 
Rome. 

The  Magd-Helene  possesses  all  the  distinguish- 
ing traits  of  character  of  the  other  Helenes,  who, 
like  the  glorious  Helene  of  the  Grecian  epic,  had 
"  suffered  much  because  she  had  loved  much." 


112  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  Simon  Magus  legend  gives  us,  perhaps,  the 
first  effort  to  apotheosize  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the 
hapless  hero  of  the  Jewish  war.  But  a  Samaritan 
Savior,  even  though  he  bore  the  glorious  name  of 
Simon,  was  persona  non  grata  to  the  sons  of  the 
Maccabees,  who,  likewise,  had  no  taste  for  the 
subtleties  of  Greek  philosophical  speculation. 
The  legend  was  recast  by  its  creator,  and  when  it 
appeared  again  in  its  revised  edition,  it  was  ut- 
terly unrecognizable.  The  proper  name,  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora,  having  passed  by  translation  into 
Greek  as  Simon  Magos,  disappeared  altogether, 
and  the  titles  "  the  Liberator "  and  the 
"  Anointed  Liberator  "  took  the  place  of  the  real 
name.  Gradually  the  title  integrated  into  a 
proper  name  once  more.  The  article  "  the  "  be- 
fore the  words  "  christos  "  and  "  lesous," 
"  anointed  "  and  "  liberator,"  disappeared  in  the 
Epistles,  and  the  new  proper  noun,  "  Christos 
lesous  "  came  into  being  out  of  the  mere  adjective 
and  the  common  noun  which  meant  "  Anointed 
Liberator."  The  clever  redactor  took  pains  in 
his  second  edition  to  conciliate  both  Judea  and 
Galilee  by  making  the  one  the  Liberator's  birth- 
place and  the  other  his  ancestral  home.  A  bet- 
ter reason  for  calling  him  a  Galilean  was  that  he 
was  a  Zelotes,  that  is,  a  follower  of  Judas,  the 
Galilean.  In  the  new  redaction,  Greek  specula- 
tion was  largely  suppressed,  and  the  original  note 
book  that  formed  the  basis  of  Mark  appeared. 


XV 
SIMON  AS  THE  CROWNED  KING 

Simon  Magus  was  but  one  reflection  of  the  vis- 
age of  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  glass  of  time.  The 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  which  gives  us  a  glimpse 
of  Simon  as  Magus,  the  mystical  philosopher,  also 
shows  us  his  portrait  as  the  "  crowned  one," 
Stephanos. 

There  has  been  a  world  of  controversy  over  the 
word  Nazaraios,  translated  "  of  Nazareth  "  and 
"  the  Nazarene."  The  later  writers  of  the  birth 
stories  and  subsequent  pious  interpolators  seek 
to  derive  the  term  from  the  name  of  a  mythical 
"  city  called  Nazareth,"  "  Nazaret,"  or  "  Naz- 
ara."  No  such  place,  however,  is  mentioned  in 
the  Old  Testament,  or  by  Josephus,  Philo,  or  any 
other  Jewish  author  whose  writings  antedate 
those  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  fact  that  there  is  a  place  in  Palestine 
which  today  is  called  En  Nasireh  proves  nothing 
beyond  the  business  instinct  of  the  Arabs  in  the 
vicinity,  for  this  clever  people  would  have  no  dif- 
ficulty in  finding  any  town  a  visitor  might  name 
provided  the  financial  interests  of  the  natives 
could  be  materially  advanced  by  such  a  discovery. 
113 


114  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  writer  of  the  Luke  says  the  parents  of  the 
Son  of  Man  resided  at  a  "  city  called  Nazaret," 
from  whence  they  went  to  Bethlehem  ("  Seat-of- 
War  "),  where  the  child  was  born.  The  Matthew 
says  they  went  to  reside  in  Nazaret  after  the 
child  was  born,  "  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  of  the  prophets,  He  shall  be  called  a 
Nazoraios."  Cross-references  in  vernacular  ver- 
sions direct  the  reader  for  this  prophecy  to  Isaiah 
11 : 1,  which  reads,  "  And  there  came  forth  a  rod 
from  the  stem  of  Jesse  [^Jeshai^  and  a  Branch 
\_Netser^  shall  grow  from  his  roots."  This 
seems  rather  too  infirm  a  foundation  on  which  to 
erect  a  city  called  Nazaret  or  anything  else.  His 
real  name  might  just  as  readily  and  plausibly  be 
conjectured  from  another  of  the  cross-references 
to  this  passage,  namely,  Zech.  3:8,"  Behold  .  .  . 
the  Branch  [in  this  instance  tSimoh^  ;  "  and  also 
Zech.  6:12,  "Behold  the  Man  whose  name  is  the 
Branch,"  or  literally  to  follow  the  order  of  the 
Hebrew  text,  "  Behold  the  Man  [Ish  (i.  e.  Gihh- 
ora)'\,  Branch  [^tSimoh'l  name-his  [iS^imo]." 
One  might  suspect  that  the  writer  of  the  John 
19:5,  had  this  prophecy  in  mind  and  that  he 
penned  that  passage  "  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  of  the  prophets,"  and  that  his 
name  might  be  revealed. 

The  fact  that  in  the  INIark,  6 :  3,  the  Son  of 
Man  is  called  a  "carpenter"  (from  nasar,  "to 
saw");  that  in  Josephus'  Wars,  IV,  9:11,  it  is 
said  the  people  called  him  Soter  and  Kedemon, 


SIMON  AS  THE  CROWNED  KING       115 

that  is  Jeshua  [Jesus]  and  Nat  sir,  or  "  Savior 
and  Preserver,"  and  that  he  is  variously  styled  in 
the  Gospels  Nazoraios,  Nazaraios  and  Nasaraios, 
points  directly  to  the  truth  that  there  was  ap- 
plied to  him  some  one  title  which  has  been  vari- 
ously understood  by  an  Aramaic-speaking  people 
as  nasar,  nazar,  natsar  and  nazir  ("  carpenter," 
"  nazirite,"  "  preserver,"  and  "  crowned  "  one), 
and  in  various  other  significations  according  to 
the  prejudices  and  proclivities  of  the  speaker 
using  the  term.  That  the  meaning  originally  in- 
tended was  the  "  crowned  "  king  appears  to  be 
correct.  According  to  the  John  19:19,  the  in- 
scription on  the  cross  was  lesous  ho  Nazoraios  ho 
Basileus  ton  loudaion,  "  the  nazarios  king  of  the 
Jews,"  that  is,  "  the  crowned  king  of  the  Jews." 
Nazir  is  the  word  for  "  crown  "  to  be  found  in 
eleven  places  in  the  Old  Testament. 

This  is  the  word  which  is  used  in  the  "  proph- 
ecy "  evidently  referred  to  by  the  Matthew, 
namely.  Judges  13 : 5,  "  the  child  shall  be  a 
Nazarite  [Nazir]  to  God."  The  word  for  "  Naz- 
arite  "  and  for  "  crown  "  are  the  same,  because 
they  refer  to  the  object  that  covers  the  head  of 
the  devotee  and  the  prince,  namely  the  unshorn 
locks  of  the  one  and  the  crown  of  the  other  which 
separate  (nazar)  them  from  the  common  people. 
That  it  is  not  the  devotee  but  the  prince  who  is 
meant  here  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  de- 
votee takes  a  vow  to  touch  neither  wine  nor  dead 
bodies,  and  the  Son  of  Man,  whether  seen  through 


116  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  pages  of  the  Gospels  or  of  Josephus,  was  not 
a  nazarite  in  that  sense  of  the  term. 

Nazir  corresponded  with  the  Greek  word 
Stephanos.  Stephanos,  which  is  the  usual  word 
throughout  the  New  Testament  for  the  common 
noun  "  crown,"  is  found  as  a  proper  name  in  the 
Acts.  The  name  appears  in  English  Versions  as 
Stephen,  the  so-called  "  first-martyr "  of  the 
Church,  whose  feast  day  is  celebrated  on  Decem- 
ber 26th,  the  day  after  Christmas.  "  With  the 
exception  of  the  narrative  in  the  Acts,"  says 
Castles  in  his  "  Supernatural  Religion,"  "  there 
is  no  evidence  that  such  a  person  as  Stephen  ever 
existed.  .  .  .  Stephen  is  not  mentioned  by  the 
Apostle  Paul,"  although,  according  to  the  Acts, 
that  person  was  present  at  the  "  stoning  of 
Stephen,"  and  had  a  guilty  knowledge  of  the 
deed. 

"  Many  details  of  the  trial  and  death  of 
Stephen,"  says  Castles,  "  are  based  on  the  ac- 
counts in  the  Gospels  of  the  trial  and  death 
of  [the]  Jesus.  The  irritated  adversaries  of 
Stephen  stir  up  the  people,  and  the  elders  and  the 
Scribes  come  upon  him  and  lead  him  to  the  Coun- 
cil, accuse  him  of  speaking  against  the  temple  and 
the  law.  The  false  witnesses  who  were  set  up 
against  [the]  Jesus  with  similar  testimony,  ac- 
cording to  the  first  two  Synoptics,  are  strangely 
omitted  by  the  third.  The  reproduction  of  this 
trial    has    much    that    is    suggestive.     The    high 


SIMON  AS  THE  CROWNED  KING      111 

priest  asks :  '  Are  these  things  so  ?  '  Stephen, 
at  the  close  of  his  speech,  exclaims :  '  I  see  the 
heavens  opened,  and  the  Son  of  Man  standing  on 
the  right  hand  of  God.'  [The]  Jesus  says, 
'  Henceforth  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  seated  on 
the  right  hand  of  the  power  of  God.'  Whilst  he 
is  being  stoned,  Stephen  prays,  saying,  '  Lord 
Jesus,  receive  my  spirit;'  and,  similarly,  [the] 
Jesus  on  the  cross  cries,  with  a  loud  voice,  '  Fa- 
ther, into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit,'  and 
having  said  this  he  expired.  Stephen,  as  he  is 
about  to  die,  cries,  with  a  loud  voice,  '  Lord,  lay 
not  this  sin  to  their  charge,'  and  when  he  said  this 
he  fell  asleep ;  and  [the]  Jesus  said,  '  Father,  for- 
give them  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.' 
These  two  sayings  of  [the]  Jesus  are  not  given 
anywhere  but  in  the  tliird  Synoptic ;  and  their 
imitation  by  Stephen  in  another  work  of  the  same 
Evangelist  is  a  peculiarity  which  deserves  atten- 
tion." 

The  story  of  the  execution  of  Stephen  as  re- 
lated in  the  Acts  is  plainly  a  reproduction  of  the 
Gospel  account  of  the  execution  of  ho  Stephanos, 
the  crowned  king  of  the  Jews,  that  is  to  say,  the 
Son  of  Man.  The  legend  therein  contained  that 
he  was  stoned  to  death  is  corroborative  of  the 
story  in  the  Talmud  that  the  Jesus  was  first  stoned 
and  then  hanged  on  a  cross,  and  it  also  adds 
further  elucidation  to  the  historical  fact  that  the 
Son  of  Man  was  actually  stoned  to  death  by  be- 


118  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

ing  hurled  from  the  Capitoline  Rock  upon  the 
stony  ground  below.  It  incidentally  helps  us  to 
understand  the  word  Nazaraios,  which  has  been 
a  puzzle  to  expositors  and  philologists  for  many 
centuries. 


XVI 
"  THOU  ART  A  SAMARITAN  " 

"  When  the  historical  truth  in  regard  to  Jesus  shall  be 
made  clear,  an  end  will  come  to  the  theological  speculations 
and  to  the  theories  of  Supernaturalism,  which  so  confuse 
the  thoughts  of  men,  and  are  so  fruitful  of  doubt  and 
denial." —  Fuhkess. 

Regarding  the  birthplace  of  "  St.  Stephen," 
"  Simon  the  Cyrenian,"  "  Simon  the  Zealot," 
"  Simon  the  Tanner,"  "  Simon  the  Leper,"  or 
"  Simon  Iscariot,"  there  is  no  record ;  but  "  Simon 
Magus,"  "  Menandros  "  and  "  Valentinus  "  were, 
legend  says,  all  like  the  "  Good  Samaritan,"  na- 
tives of  Samaria,  for  the  very  good  reason  that 
all  these  are  but  various  names  for  one  individual. 

V\niile  the  first  draft  of  the  Simon  Magus  story 
must  have  been  written  in  Greek,  it  is  more  than 
problematical  that  the  Ur-Mark  was  written  in 
Semitic. 

The  alteration  of  a  single  initial  letter,  the 
changing  of  d  into  s  in  the  existing  Syriac  text 
of  Matthew  1:16,  would  make  the  verse  read  as 
follows : 

"  And  Jacob  begat  Joseph  Gi'ora,  of  Samaria,  by 
whom  was  begotten  the  Jesus  who  is  called  the 
Anointed." 

119 


120  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  phrase  usually  translated  "  Joseph,  husband 
of  Mary,"  is  in  Syriac  "  Joseph  Gi'ora  damaria." 
The  d  in  Syriac  is  almost  circular  while  the  s  is 
formed  by  a  small  circle  tangential  with  a  larger 
one;  but  changing  time  or  careless  copyists  could 
easily  alter  the  letter  to  a  d. 

In  the  genealogical  table  in  the  Syriac  of  Luke 
■3 :  23,  the  lengthening  of  a  single  line,  the  pro- 
longation of  an  I  below  the  base  makes  of  it  a  g, 
and  running  the  letters  together,  as  is  done  in  old 
manuscripts,  gives  us  this  reading:  "Joseph 
Bark  Gibarh,"  instead  of  "  Joseph  Bar  hit  harh." 

The  introduction  of  Gabriel  into  the  account  of 
the  Annunciation  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Luke, 
was  due,  perhaps,  to  a  desire  to  explain  the  name 
Bar  Gibhora,  or,  Bar  Gi'ora.  Gabriel,  in  Semitic, 
Gbhri-el,  is  from  the  root  "  Gbhr,"  which  means 
"  Man  "  or  "  Power  "  as  stated  before. 

Gabriel  is  literally  either  "  Man  of  God  " —  the 
Hebrew  "  Men  of  God "  were  prophets  —  or, 
"  Power  of  God,"  which  was  one  of  the  titles  that, 
it  is  said,  Simon  Magus  applied  to  himself. 

The  legend  of  the  Magi  (in  Greek  Magoi,  from 
the  singular,  Magos)  in  the  second  chapter  of  the 
Matthew  appears  to  have  been  inserted  there  for 
the  purpose  of  accounting  for  the  name  Magos 
in  the  Simon  Magos  story,  of  which  it,  probably, 
formed  a  part,  for  no  critics  today  will  insist  that 
the  birth  legends  of  the  Matthew  and  of  the  Luke 
comprised  an  integral  portion  of  either  Gospel. 

In  the  Luke  account  we  read,  "  And  in  the  sixth 


"  THOU  ART  A  SAMARITAN  "      121 

month  the  angel  "  Gabriel  was  sent  from  God 
...  to  a  virgin  .  .  .  and  the  virgin's  name 
Maria." 

In  Semitic  the  last  two  words  are  Sliem  Maria. 
In  ancient  manuscripts,  which  knew  no  spacing 
between  words  and  no  capital  letters,  the  expres- 
sion Shemaria,  or,  Samaria,  the  motherland  of 
the  "  woman  of  Samaria,"  and  the  legendary 
home  of  Simon  Magus.  It  is  also  significant  that 
"  Maria  "  is  not  a  Hebrew  name  for  a  woman,  and 
is  not  the  equivalent  for  INIiriam,  of  the  Exodus. 

Neither  is  Elizabeth  a  Hebrew  personal  name, 
for  it  is  nowhere  found  in  any  Hebrew  literature. 
"  Eleisabet  "  is  the  spelling  in  Dr.  Nestle's  latest 
revised  Greek  text.  "  Eleia  "  is  the  orthography 
of  the  same  text  for  the  Greek  form  of  Elias,  other- 
wise Elijah;  and  "  Eleisa-bet  "  has  more  of  a 
topographical  than  a  personal  sense,  referring  to 
the  ancestral  home  (beth)  of  Elias,  namely, 
Samaria,  which  was  the  birthplace  also  of  Simon 
Magus.  The  Luke  Gospel  has  two  stories  in- 
tended to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  just  as  Genesis  has  two  accounts  of  the 
origin  of  Man,  but  an  early  editor  had  the  clever- 
ness to  give  the  extra  one  to  the  legendary  John 
("gift  of  God")  the  Baptist.  Gabriel,  the 
"  Power  of  God,"  or  "  Man  of  God  "  (which  lat- 
ter is  another  meaning  of  "  Zacharias  "  the 
reputed  father  of  the  Baptist)  makes  the  an- 
nouncement in  both  cases.  In  the  Baptist  legend 
we  read  that  John  is  to  go  forth  "  in  the  spirit 


122  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

and  power  of  Elias."  The  first  phrase  in  Semitic 
gives  us  "  Ba-roah,"  or  Baroch,  and  the  second 
"  power  of  Elias  "  is  "  Gbr-El-jhu,"  the  elements 
of  "  Gahri-el," —  a  Je^v-ish  "  jeu  de  mots  "  with 
which  their  literature  is  filled. 

Another  play  on  words  is  furnished  in  the  John 
3 :  30,  in  the  puzzling  sentence,  "  He  must  in- 
crease \_ioroqh  or  iorach'\  and  I  decrease  [^Goral.^' 
This  seems  like  a  cryptic  attempt  at  an  equation, 
an  effort  to  disclose  the  identity  of  the  two  repre- 
sentations in  a  single  individual,  of  the  Jesus  and 
the  John  the  Baptist, —  one  the  son  of  Gibhora, 
or  jMan,  and  the  other  the  son  of  Zachar,  also 
man  (male). 

Luke  1 :  39,  says  John  the  Baptist  was  born  in 
a  "  city  of  Judah."  This  is  clearly  a  mistake  for 
that  would  make  Jerusalem  his  birthplace.  Judah 
is  written  for  Jutah,  or,  as  it  appears  in  un- 
pointed Hebrew,  It-h,  that  is,  Yitah,  or  Yitta,  in 
which  form  one  can  readily  see  Gitta,  which  mod- 
ern Greeks  even  pronounce  "  Yitta."  Gitta  was 
the  birthplace  of  Simon  INIagus,  and  is  situated 
near  the  foot  of  Mount  Gerizim. 

In  "  Zacharaias  "  we  have  another  topographi- 
cal turn  which  may  be  resolved  to  Issachar,  one 
of  the  indefinite  portions  of  Samaria. 

The  reference  in  the  other  legend  to  Joseph  is 
also  topographical,  for  to  Joseph  was  ascribed 
the  entire  country  of  Samaria,  with  which 
"  Joseph "  is  territorially  synonymous  as  is 
"  Judah "     with     Judea,     and     "  Simeon "     with 


"  THOU  ART  A  SAMARITAN  "      123 

Idumea.  The  Son  of  Man  was  a  son  of  "  Joseph," 
the  eponymic  name  of  Samaria. 

Josephus  says  that  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son 
of  Man,  was  a  "  Gerasenos  genos,"  which  Whiston 
translates,  "  a  native  of  Gerasa,"  although  it  is 
quite  probable  the  word  in  the  text  intended  for 
"  Gerezeinos"  is  from  the  Hebrew  Gerizim,  Syriac 
Gerezin,  in  Samaria.  Orthography  is  unsettled 
in  regard  to  this  word.  Gerezim  appears  as  also 
Garizein  in  Josephus ;  Garazin  in  four  places  in 
the  Septuagint.  We  find  the  word  Gergesaioi  in 
the  Septuagint  (Joshua  9:1,  where  it  translates 
Grezim  of  the  corresponding  Hebrew  text),  which 
refers  to  this  place  in  Samaria, —  the  second  g 
being  aspirated,  or  silenced,  like  our  own  as- 
pirated g  in  such  words  as  "  night."  From  this 
it  would  appear  that  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  was  a 
Samaritan,  a  native  of  the  country  in  the  vicinity 
of  Mt.  Gerizim,  the  Holy  Mount  of  Samaria ; 
where,  according  to  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch, 
Deuteronomy  27 : 4  and  5,  Moses  commanded 
that  the  Temple  of  Yahweh  should  be  erected. 

It  was  adjacent  to  Mt.  Gerizim  he  talked  with 
the  Woman  of  Samaria,  for  she  said,  "  Our  fa- 
thers worshipped  on  this  mountain."  The  Vul- 
gate gives  the  place  the  cryptic  name  of  Sichar 
(from  Sicarius).  He  spent  but  two  days  there 
then  "  for,"  as  the  John  relates,  "  the  Jesus  him- 
self testified  that  a  prophet  hath  no  honor  in  his 
ozvn  countrT/.'' —  John  4,  44. 

We  read  in  the  John  Gospel  (8:48),  "Then 


124  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  Jews  answered  and  said  to  him,  '  say  we  not 
well  that  thou  art  a  Samaritan  and  hast  a  de- 
mon? '  "  In  reply  the  Son  of  Man  denied  that 
he  had  a  demon,  but  he  did  not  deny  that  he  was 
a  Samaritan.^ 

1  There  is  a  parallel  to  this  circumlocution  in  the  John, 
1:49,  51,  where  the  Nathanael  of  Cana  addresses  the  Jesus 
as  "  Son  of  God  "  and  "  King  of  Israel,"  and  to  which  the 
Jesus  replies  as  the  "  Son  of  Man,"  making  no  denial  of  his 
kingship. 


XVII 
BEHOLD  THE  HANDMAID  OF  THE  LORD 

Though  we  know  that  tlie  Son  of  Man  was  a 
son  of  Joseph  in  the  eponymic  sense  of  the  tei-m, 
we  have  no  more  definite  knowledge  and  only  a 
confused  idea  of  his  maternal  ancestry. 

The  Hebrew  word  for  "  mother "  is  spelled, 
Aleph-Mem,  and  for  "  handmaid "  or  "  female 
slave  "  is  Ale ph-M em-He.  It  is  easily  apparent 
how  the  one  word  passed  for  the  other  in  the  first 
condensed  form  of  the  Gospel  story  and  how  the 
stronger  human  appeal  of  the  idea  of  "  mother  " 
prevailed  over  that  of  "  handmaid,"  or  even 
"  wife."  It  should  also  be  noted  here  that  the 
"  glorious  Helene,"  the  handmaid  of  Simon 
(Magus)  was  called  in  his  system  "Mother  of 
All."  In  Luke  1 :  38,*  we  find  Mary  whom  the 
Gospels  call  the  mother,  when  speaking  to 
Gabri-el  (that  is  the  Gibor-El)  calls  herself  "  the 
handmaid  of  the  Lord  [Gifo/ior«]."  In  the  ac- 
count of  the  wedding  of  Cana,  close  inspection  of 
the  present  text  will  reveal  both  terms,  "  mother  " 
and  "  wife "  applied  to  the  same  woman.  The 
text  so  brutally  rendered  in  the  Authorized  Ver- 
sion, "What  have  I  to  do  with  thee,  woman?" 

125 


126  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

loses  its  boorishness  when  it  is  correctly  trans- 
lated "What  is  mine?  It  is  thine  also,  my  wife 
[grz/Tiflt]."  The  Greek  gune,  like  the  French 
femme  and  the  German  Frau,  in  such  a  context 
means  only  one  thing.  Had  the  speaker  intended 
to  express  the  sense  of  "  mother  "  he  would  have 
used  that  word  (Meter)  and  would  not  have  run 
the  risk  of  being  misunderstood  by  the  guests  as 
calling  his  mother  "  wife." 

In  connection  herewith  it  may  be  well  to  men- 
tion the  fact  that  there  was  no  Cana,  of  Galilee, 
unless  the  boundary  of  Galilee  be  considered  as 
extended,  as  some  maps  actually  show  it,  so  far 
to  the  northwest  as  to  include  the  Cana  not  far 
from  Tyre,  the  city  in  which  Simon  (Magus)  met 
the  fair  Helene,  whom  he  probably  wedded  at 
Cana.  It  is  from  Cana,  perhaps,  we  have  the 
adjective  "  Canaanitish  "  in  the  New  Testament, 
for  the  term  "  Carman  "  as  applied  to  a  country 
was  as  archaic  and  antiquated  in  New  Testament 
times  as  Caledonia,  Gallia  or  Helvetia  would  be 
today,  for  Scotland,  France  and  Switzerland,  re- 
spectively. 

Simon's  (Bar  Gi'ora's)  deep  affection  for  his 
wife  is  commented  upon  by  Josephus  in  Wars  IV, 
9:8:  "  The  success  of  Simon,"  says  his  enemy 
Josephus,  "  excited  the  adherents  of  John  afresh, 
and  though  they  were  afraid  to  fight  him  openly 
in  a  fair  battle,  they  lay  ambushes  in  the  passes 
and  seized  upon  his  wife  [gune^,  with  a  considera- 
ble number  of  her  attendants,  whereupon  they  re- 


THE  HANDMAID  OF  THE  LORD      127 

turned  to  the  city  rejoicing  as  much  as  if  they 
had  caught  Simon  himself,  and  were  in  momentary 
expectation  that  he  would  lay  down  his  arms  and 
beg  them  give  back  his  wife.  But,  instead,  he 
stormed  at  them  for  seizing  his  beloved  wife.  He 
came  to  the  wall  of  Jerusalem  and  raged  like  a 
wounded  tiger.  .  .  .  He  swore  by  the  God  of  the 
universe  that,  unless  they  would  give  him  up  his 
wife,  he  would  tear  down  the  wall.  .  .  .  These 
threats  so  terrified  the  adherents  of  John  that 
they  restored  his  wife  to  him  and  he  became  some- 
what calmer.'-' 

Unfortunately  the  text  of  Josephus  as  it  now 
stands  fails  to  give  us  the  name  of  Simon's  wife. 

In  the  John  Gospel  (20:  13),  we  find  the  Jesus 
using  the  word  gune  when  speaking  to  the  Marea, 
the  Magd-Helene:  "Wife;  why  weepest  thou?" 
It  is  true  the  words  are  used  in  a  post-resurrec- 
tion incident,  yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  original 
redactor  of  the  story  was  aware  of  the  relation- 
ship represented  by  that  affectionate  term. 

The  same  term  is  attributed  to  him  in  the  Mat- 
thew Gospel  (15:28),  in  addressing  the  Woman 
of  Canaan,  or  Cana,  referred  to  above. 

In  the  Acts  (8:9-10),  reference  is  made  to  a 
certain  Simon,  who,  in  Samaria,  gave  himself  out 
to  be  "  The  Great  '  Power  of  God  '  "  (Gabri-El), 
who  offered  money  to  the  Apostles  to  be  given 
faculties  to  confer  the  Holy  Ghost.  This  is 
plainly  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the  writer  to  mark 
the    Simonian   doctrine    as    a    plagiarism   of   the 


128  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Christian.  As  many,  including  Renan,  have  shown 
the  unreliabiHty  of  the  writer  of  the  Acts,  of  his 
confusion  of  chronology  in  making  Theudas  pre- 
cede instead  of  follow  Judas  the  Galilean,  and  of 
his  confounding  the  death  of  Agrippa  with  the 
death  of  his  grandfather,  Herod  the  Great,  no 
greater  credence  need  be  bestowed  upon  this 
Simon  incident. 

While  the  word  Magos  does  not  appear  in  the 
story  in  the  Acts,  it  is  evident  that  the  writer 
meant  Simon  Magus  from  his  use  of  the  term 
Great  (Gibor)  Power  {GVora)  and  by  the  use  of 
the  word  mageia  which  is  rendered  "  sorceries." 
In  the  English  Authorized  Version  the  word  magos 
is  translated  "  sorcerer,"  when  reference  is  made 
to  one  Elumas  (the  name  "Samuel"  reversed)  a 
hostile  personage,  though  it  is  rendered  "  wise 
man  "  when  it  applies  to  friends  of  the  faith,  as  in 
Matthew  2:1. 

In  the  philosophical  system  of  Simon  Magus, 
the  originating  principle  of  the  Universe,  the 
Great  Indefinite  Power,  is  fire.  A  Magos  was  a 
priest  of  the  oriental  fire-worshippers,  and  the 
word  for  fire-worshipper  is  Gheber,  perhaps  akin 
to  Gbr,  the  root  of  Gabriel  and  Gibhora,  or 
Giora,  of  Bar  GVora,  the  Son  of  Man.  In  He- 
brew also  the  word  Ish  means  both  "  man  "  and 
"  fire."  Several  texts  in  the  New  Testament  re- 
fer to  a  ritualistic  use  of  fire,  not  now  easily  un- 
derstood, because  they  are  cryptic.  In  the  Mat- 
thew 3:11,  we  read  "He  that  cometh  after  me 


THE  HANDMAID  OF  THE  LORD      129 

is  mightier  [Gibhora^  than  I.  .  .  .  He  shall  bap- 
tize [overwhelm]  you  .  .  .  the  Roah  Kadesh 
.  .  .  with  fire."  Luke  3:16,  reads,  "John  an- 
swered, saying  to  them  all :  'I  indeed  baptize 
[overwhelm]  you  with  water  but  one  mightier 
\_Gibhora'\  than  I  cometh  ...  he  shall  baptize 
[overwhelm]  you  with  the  Roah  Kadesh  and  with 
fire.'  "  Mark  9 :  49,  contains  the  seemingly  ob- 
scure passage :  "  For  every  one  shall  be  salted 
with  fire  and  every  sacrifice  shall  be  salted  with 
salt."  Acts  2:3-4,  declares:  "And  there  ap- 
peared unto  them  cloven  tongues  like  as  fire,  and 
it  sat  upon  each  of  them  and  they  were  all  filled 
with  the  Roah  Kadesh." 

The  twelfth  chapter  of  Hebrews  ends  with  the 
sentence  above  quoted  from  Simon  Magus,  "  for 
our  God  is  a  consuming  fire." 

INIention  of  the  use  of  the  word  Gheber  among 
the  Persians  is  suggestive  of  the  strange  survival 
of  the  real  name  of  the  Son  of  Man  as  applied  to 
his  followers  in  Turkey.  Christians  are  there 
called  Ghiaures.  The  Turks  pronounce  the  word, 
Gee-oar,  with  a  hard  g.  The  more  common 
spelling  in  English  dictionaries  is  Giaour,  which 
the  Standard  Dictionary  undertakes  to  derive 
from  the  Persian  Gawr,  or  Gabr.  (See  also  the 
Oxford  Dictionary  under  the  words  Giaouf  and 
Guebre.)  Thus,  the  further  back  we  go,  the 
nearer  we  approach  the  name  Gibhora,  or  Gi'ora, 
the  Son  of  Man. 


XVIII 

THE  SON  OF  MAN  AS  MENANDROS 

Simon  Magus  is  said  by  ecclesiastical  writers 
to  have  been  the  founder  of  the  Gnostic  school. 
No  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  use  of  the  word 
Gnostic  has  been  put  forward,  but  it  is  not  im- 
probable they  were  called  Gnostics  (from  "  gin- 
osko,"  "  I  know ")  because  they  actually  knew 
that  the  Jesus,  Simon  Magus,  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora, 
and  the  other  Simons  of  the  Gospels,  Menander 
and  Valentinus  were,  all  and  singular,  one  and 
the  same  personality,  and  knew  how  properly  to 
read  the  New  Testament. 

Next  to  the  fame  of  Simon  Magus  in  Gnosti- 
cism comes  that  of  Menander,  whose  very  name  in- 
dicates an  identity  with  the  Simon  Magus,  alias 
Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  as  seen  from  a  different  point 
of  view.  The  name  Menander  (Menandros,  in 
Greek)  is  formed  from  two  Greek  words, 
"  Menos  "  and  "  Andros  "  which  mean  "  Power  " 
and  "  Man  "  respectively,  and  embrace  the  two 
meanings  of  "  Gi'ora."  This  Semite  with  the 
compound  Greek  name  of  "  Menos- Andros,"  or 
Menandros,  is  represented  as  having  founded  the 
Syrian  Gnostic  School  at  Antioch,  and  according 

to  Acts  11 :  26,  "  the  disciples  were  called  Chris- 
130 


SON  OF  MAN  AS  MENANDROS       131 

tians  first  in  Antioch."  Menander  was  also  a  re- 
puted worker  of  miracles  and,  of  course,  being 
merely  a  translated  personality,  "  born  again  "  of 
the  Word,  that  is,  of  philology,  he  was  also  a  Sa- 
maritan. According  to  Eusebius  he  represented 
that  "  he  was  the  Savior  once  sent  from  the  in- 
visible world  for  the  salvation  of  men.  .  .  . 
Menander,  who  was  a  Samaritan,  .  .  .  persuaded 
those  that  followed  him  that  they  should  never 
die."  This  promise,  although  strongly  con- 
demned by  Eusebius,  is  only  a  parallel  with  that 
made  to  another  Samaritan,  "  whosoever  drinketh 
of  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  never 
thirst ;  but  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him  shall  be 
in  him  a  well  of  water  springing  up  into  everlast- 
ing life"  (John  4:14).  Neither  is  it  far  re- 
moved from  the  promise  in  John  6:51,  "If  any 
man  eat  of  this  bread,  he  shall  live  forever." 

The  odium  tlieologicum  manifested  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  early  Fathers  against  the  unrecognized 
counterfeit  presentments  of  the  hero  of  the  Gos- 
pels is  manifested  in  the  Talmud  against  the 
Jesus  himself,  whom  all  failed  to  recognize  under 
the  veil  of  a  title  which  germinated  into  a  name. 
The  Son  of  Man,  thought  of  as  Jesus,  is  spoken 
of  by  the  writers  of  the  Talmud  in  much  the  same 
language  as  the  Son  of  Man  comprehended  as 
Simon  Magus,  or  Menander,  is  referred  to  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church.  The  Jesus  is  a  magician 
in  the  Talmud,  the  makers  of  which  had  as  firm 
a  faith  as  had  the  Fathers  in  magic  and  miracles. 


132  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

In  the  Talmud  there  is  a  blending  of  the  several 
personalities  of  the  Liberator  or  Savior  into  one. 
The  Jesus  is  said  by  the  Talmudic  writers  to  have 
been  a  son  of  Joseph  Ben  Stada.  Various  fanci- 
ful attempts  have  been  made  to  account  for  the 
name  Stada,  which  is,  doubtless,  a  Jewish  natural- 
ization of  the  Greek  Stadios  standing.  Simon 
Magus  designated  himself  as  "  The  standing  one," 
— "  qui  stat,"  and  "  the  one  who  stands,  stood  and 
will  stand."  The  Jesus  of  the  Talmud,  like  Simon 
Magus  and  his  other  duplicates.  Bar  Gi'ora  and 
Menander,  or  Menandros,  is  also  a  Samaritan. 
He  is  also  called  Ben  Pandera.  This  is  evidently 
a  misunderstanding  of  the  words  liuios  andros,  or 
Son  of  Man,  the  andros  of  which  appears  in  his 
other  name,  Menandros,  through  failure, —  wilful, 
perhaps,  to  recognize  the  Huios  andros  as  a 
translation  of  the  Ben  Adam  of  the  prophets. 
The  Andros  is  treated  as  a  proper  name,  the  fact 
of  descent  being  marked  by  the  Greek  preposi- 
tion apo,  "  from  "  or  "  of,"  like  the  terminal  "  s  " 
in  many  Welsh  family  names.  From  Ap-andros, 
or  A-pander  to  Pander-a  is  an  easy  step  for  a 
scribe  indifferent  to  all  languages  but  to  that 
which  he  considered  the  sacred  tongue. 

The  stigma  of  illegitimacy  cast  upon  the  Jesus 
in  the  Talmud  is  probably  due  to  the  confusion  of 
the  word  for  "  mother  "  with  the  word  for  "  fe- 
male slave,"  referred  to  on  a  previous  page,  and 
which  has  given  rise  in  the  Gospels,  by  duplication, 
to  two  Marys.      The  Gospel  writers  who  are  ever 


SON  OF  MAN  AS  MENANDROS      133 

zealous  for  reduplication  of  both  personality  and 
incident,  have  produced  four  ]Marys  from  one  indi- 
viduality, and  have  even  introduced  two  sisters 
called  by  the  very  same  name.  The  Talmud 
writers,  contrariwise,  while  parsimonious  with 
personality  to  the  extent  of  recognizing  but  a 
single  INIary,  have,  nevertheless,  confounded  in  her 
the  characters  of  both  "  handmaid "  and 
"  mother,"  of  Ainh  with  Am.  They  have  made  of 
Helene  (the  ''ennoia"  or  '' maria"  the  Magd- 
Helene),  a  magdalene-mother,  in  the  traditional 
sense  of  "  magdalene."  Pick,  in  his  "  Jesus  in  the 
Talmud,"  makes  the  mistake  of  believing  "  the 
Scribes  have  confounded  Mary,  the  mother,  with 
Mary,  the  Magdalene."  It  is  not  the  Scribes  who 
have  confounded  the  two  individualities ;  it  is  the 
Evangelists  who  have  produced  the  one  individual 
in  quadruplicate. 

The  folk  etymology  attempted  in  the  Talmud 
in  calling  the  mother  of  the  Jesus  a  m'gddla 
nashoia,  or  "  women's  hairdresser,"  plainly  shows 
an  effort  to  find  a  derivation  of  Magd-Helene. 
Their  odium  tlieologicum  would  make  it  impos- 
sible, even  unthinkable,  to  apply  the  term  "  glor- 
ious "  to  anybody  associated  with  the  Jesus. 
The  Scribes  had  heard  of  but  one  woman  asso- 
ciated with  him,  Helene,  the  "  Mother  of  All 
Things,"  the  first  Maria,  or  "  emanation "  of 
Simon  (JNIagus)  ;  the  "  handmaid  "  (doule,  female 
slave),  as  she  calls  herself  in  the  Luke  Gospel; 
the  gune,  or  "  wife,"  in  the  John,  the  bride  at  the 


134*  SIMON  SON  OP  MAN 

wedding  of  Cana  in  the  environs  of  Tyre;  and 
withal  the  queen  who  anointed  the  Son  of  Man  as 
King  of  the  Jews, —  in  his  own  castle  —  that  of 
Shimon  Girwa,  or  Gi'ora,  usually  mistranslated 
"  Simon  the  Leper." 

With  the  true  theological  license  of  some  pres- 
ent-day popular  evangelists,  the  Scribes  apply  the 
"  short  and  ugly  word  "  to  the  "  Son  of  Man  " 
whom  they  fail  to  recognize  as  the  Bar  Gi'ora  of 
the  terrible  days  of  their  trial,  much  less  the  Ben 
Adam  of  their  prophets.  Even  the  coarser  word 
"  fool "  they  do  not  hesitate  to  apply  to  him 
whom,  according  to  the  Mark  (3:21),  his  friends 
declared  to  be  "  beside  himself."  Perhaps  the 
personal  equation  also  in  some  way  subconsciously 
figures  in  the  extravagant  condemnation  of  the 
vulgar  word,  "  Thou  fool ! "  Or  it  may  be  it 
arose  from  a  subconscious  knowledge  of  the 
meaning  of  the  word  marah,  which  is  "  rebel,"  and, 
therefore,  in  the  eyes  of  the  prudently  timid,  a 
"  fool."  Indeed  the  Talmud  distinctly  states 
that  the  Jesus  was  a  revolutionary,  but  it  seems 
blinded  to  all  knowledge  of  the  real  revolution  in 
which  the  Son  of  Man,  the  great  Simon  Bar 
Gi'ora,  had  been  engaged. 


XIX 

BAR  GI'ORA  AS  SIMON  BAR  CHOCHAB 

The  Talmud  and  its  follower,  Dion  Cassius,  are 
the  only  authorities  we  have  for  the  Simon  Bar 
Chochab  portrait  of  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son 
of  Man.  The  story  of  his  career  is  another  result 
of  the  process  of  Messianic  multiplication.  Si- 
mon*s  name  was  again  played  upon  by  the  Rabbis, 
those  verbal  alchemists  who  worked  with  words  in 
the  crude  crucible  of  their  thoughts,  producing 
extracts  of  hidden  and  unsuspected  meanings. 

Although  this  last  Messiah  is  said  not  to  have 
appeared  until  135  of  the  Christian  era,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  in  him  another  duplicate  of  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora.  The  name  Bar  Chochab,  or  Barcho- 
chaba,  as  it  is  sometimes  written,  appears  to  be  a 
composite  of  Baroch  and  Barabba,  which  refer  to 
one  individual,  namely,  the  Son  of  Man,  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora,  as  has  been  shown  on  a  previous  page. 
This  happy  synthesis,  which  gives  us  the  meaning, 
Son  of  a  Star,  a  being  indeed  difficult  to  visualize, 
was,  doubtless,  the  mental  child  of  the  zeal  of  the 
rabbis  who  had  ever  as  ready  an  eye  as  their 
brethren,  the  Evangelists,  to  see  that  some  proph- 
ecy might  be  fulfilled. 

135 


136  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  Rabbi  Akiba  (or,  laJciba,  or  lakob)  saw  in 
Bar  Chochab  the  son  of  the  star  spoken  of  by  the 
Midianite  prophet,  Balaam  Ben  Beor,  who  rode 
on  an  ass,  and  "  was  slain  with  the  sword." 
Here  let  it  be  noted  that  Balaam  is  the  cryptic 
name  in  the  Talmud  for  the  Jesus,  and  it  is  the 
term  employed  for  the  same  person  in  the  anti- 
Christian  form  of  the  Apocalypse  before  it  was 
re-edited  as  a  Christian  book. 

A  star  of  the  east  did  not  lead  Oriental  sor- 
cerers to  his  cradleside.  Bar  Chochab  was  the 
star  itself  which  was  to  "  step  forth  from  Jacob 
(darach  Kocliab  m7a/co6),"   Num.   24:17. 

Bar  Chochab,  according  to  the  legend  in  the 
Talmud,  was  proclaimed  the  Messiah,  that  is  to 
say,  the  Great  Jewish  Emperor  with  whom 
Yahweh  was  to  compensate  the  Jews  for  all  their 
sufferings  and  humiliations  at  the  hands  of  the 
Gentiles.  The  Messiah  was  to  overcome  all  the 
Gentiles  and  humble  all  nations  of  the  earth  at 
the  feet  of  this  Son  of  David.  The  Son  of  David 
was  not  originally  understood  in  a  literal  sense. 
The  Jewish  prophets  dreamt  a  dream  of  the  res- 
toration of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  David,  torn 
and  rent  asunder  by  many  a  conqueror's  sword. 
This  ancient  kingdom  of  David  extended  from 
"  Dan  to  Beersheba,"  from  the  Lebanon  Moun- 
tains to  the  Idumean  Wilderness,  and  from  the 
Arabian  deserts  to  the  Great  Sea,  the  Mediter- 
ranean. This  kingdom  had  fallen  apart  soon 
after  Solomon's  death,  and  ever  since  then  it  has 


BAR  CHOCHAB  137 

been  the  darling  dream  of  patriotic  Jews  to  re- 
store the  Kingdom  to  its  legendary  glory  and  ex- 
pand it  to  its  ancient  frontiers.  The  Restorer  of 
the  Davidic  kingdom  would  be  a  mighty,  victo- 
rious War  Lord,  a  worthy  successor  of  the  all-con- 
quering king,  verily  a  second  David  come  upon 
earth,  deserving  of  being  called  the  son  of  the 
Great  King. 

That  it  was  in  this  physical  sense  the  Son  of 
Man  intended  to  reign,  appears  from  a  few  texts 
of  the  New  Testament,  which  pious  hands  have,  by 
some  strange  over-sight,  neglected  to  eliminate. 
Such  a  one  is  that  of  the  Luke  19 :  27,  which  reads 
as  follows  in  the  Douay  text :  "But  as  for  these 
my  enemies,  who  would  not  have  me  reign  over 
them,  bring  them  hither,  and  kill  them  before  me !  " 

It  was  the  Messianic  idea  that  after  all  the 
heathen  had  been  put  to  the  sword,  the  Messiah, 
the  personal  representative  of  Yahweh,  God's 
second  self  and  son,  would  re-erect  the  ancient  em- 
pire centered  about  the  City  of  the  Great  King 
David,  Jerusalem.  Only  those  faithful  to  Yah- 
weh, the  Chosen  People,  would  awake  in  all  the 
earth  and  possess  it,  their  promised  inheritance. 
The  heathen,  the  benighted  Greeks  and  all  other 
goim  and  ethnoi,  would  rest  forever  in  their 
dreamless   sleep. 

The  Greek  idea  of  a  future  state  of  pure  spirit- 
uality, of  the  existence  of  a  soul  apart  from  the 
body,  was  a  heretical  innovation  which  did  not 
appeal    to    the    practical,    hard-headed    Hebrews 


138  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

who  could  conceive  of  no  life  without  a  body,  and 
whose  ideas  of  a  function  without  an  organ  func- 
tioning, were  not  much  different  from  those  of 
Alice,  when  her  Cheshire  cat  began  to  disappear 
till  there  was  nothing  left  but  a  grin.  "  I've  often 
seen  a  cat  without  a  grin,"  meditated  the  girlish 
philosopher ;  "  but  a  grin  without  a  cat !  —  it's 
the  most  curious  thing  I  ever  saw  in  all  my  life!  " 
This  view  of  life  after  death  took  the  form  of  a 
belief  in  an  exclusively  Jewish  resuscitation. 
That  this  was  the  Jewish  conception  of  a  future 
state  —  a  political  state  with  definite  physical 
frontiers  —  appears  in  the  commonly  accepted 
translations  of  the  story  of  the  resurrection  of 
Lazarus.  Tennyson,  in  his  "  In  Memoriam," 
commits  the  customary  error  of  confounding  the 
Christian  with  the  Jewish  idea  of  that  state.  He 
says: 

When  Lazarus  left  his  charnel-cave, 
And  home  to  Mary's  house  return'd, 
Was  this  demanded  —  if  he  yearned 

To  hear  her  weeping  by  his  grave? 

"Where  wert  thou,  brother,  those  four  days?" 

There  lives  no  record  of  reply, 

Which,  telling  what  it  is  to  die. 
Had  surely  added  praise  to  praise. 

From  every  house  the  neighbors  met, 

The  streets  were  filled  with  joyful  sound, 
A  solemn  gladness  even  crowned 

The  purple  brows  of  Olivet. 


BAR  CHOCHAB  1S9 

Behold  a  man  raised  up  by  Christ ! 

The  rest  remaineth  unrevealed; 

He  told  it  not;  or  something  sealed 
The  lips  of  that  evangelist. 

The  reasoi)  that  evangelist's  lips  were  sealed 
was,  that  he  had  nothing  more  to  tell.  His  views, 
like  those  recorded  of  the  Jesus,  were,  that  "  Laz- 
arus sleepeth  " ;  that  is,  he  lay  unconscious,  and 
that  he  would  remain  in  that  hibernating  state  of 
absolute  blank  oblivion  until  the  day  of  his  arous- 
ing or  arising,  technically,  the  Resurrection. 
Tennyson  might  have  asked  a  similar  question 
regarding  the  Jesus,  who,  according  to  the  Evan- 
gelists, was  buried  also  some  days  and  is  even 
quoted  as  saying  three  days  after  his  death,  "  I 
am  not  yet  ascended  to  my  father."  After  his 
arising  he  is  not  recorded  as  having  told,  nor  was 
he  asked  to  tell  of  his  experience  during  the  inter- 
ment. Even  "  Thomas,"  who  doubted  his  arising 
never  questioned  the  soundness  of  his  sleep.  The 
Limbo  in  which  the  soul  of  the  Jesus  rested  while 
his  body  was  in  the  grave  —  according  to  Roman 
Catholic  authority  —  was  not  discovered  until 
after  the  New  Testament  was  written,  and  not 
until  Greek  views  on  discarnate  spirit  had  driven 
out  of  the  church  the  doctrine  of  hibernation 
which  had  been  revealed  to  the  Jews.  The  King- 
dom of  Heaven  which  the  Jews  sighed  after,  was 
the  Kingdom  of  Simon,  built  upon  the  foundation 
of  the  David's  empire,  undisturbed  by  the  govm^ 


140  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

who,  anniliilated  by  the  sword  of  the  Messiah, 
would  sleep  on  in  silence,  like  the  everlasting  hills. 
Yahweh  then  would  have  fulfilled  his  covenant  with 
Abraham.  Only  Jews  would  walk  the  earth,  and 
outside  their  kingdom  would  stretch  out  vast 
silences  swept  waste  by  the  sword  of  the  conquer- 
ing Messiah,  the  second  David,  the  second  Adam, 
the  Son  of  David,  the  Ben  Adam,  the  Son  of  Man, 
who  had  resurrected,  and  who  had  re-erected  or 
restored  the  empire  of  the  Great  King.  This 
prophecy  of  Balaam,  that  "  a  star  [A'aA;o&]  shall 
go  forth  from  Jacob,"  which  was  applied  by 
Akiba,  or  Jacob,  made  a  Jacob  the  originator  of 
the  Messiah.  This  Akiba,  or  Jacob,  v/ho  is  said 
to  have  started  Bar  Chochab  out  on  his  career, 
was,  it  appears,  plain  Jakohos  Mikros,  who  is 
mentioned  once  only  in  each  of  the  Matthew,  the 
Mark  and  the  Luke  Gospels,  and  whose  name  in 
each  instance  is  mistranslated  "  James  the  Less," 
but  who  would  be  more  correctly  called  "  James 
Paul."  "Mikros"  is  the  Greek  of  the  Latin 
Paidus,  under  which  veil  we  find  hidden  the  Paul 
who  is  alwaj's  behind  the  scenes  in  the  Messianic 
drama. 

The  hand  of  "  Akiba  "  was  also  busy  in  the  Old 
Testament.  He  it  was  who  definitely  fixed  the 
canon  and  compiled  and  systematized  the  tra- 
ditional law.  In  editing  the  prophetical  books 
one  can  easily  imagine  in  him  an  intense  desire 
that  the  prophecies  might  be  fulfilled,  and  a  strong 
temptation  to  edit  the  prophecies  in  the  light  of 


BAR  CHOCHAB  141 

his  positive  opinions.  The  influence  of  such  a 
hand  appears  especially  in  Isaiah  53  and  Psalm 
89. 

Simon  Bar  Chochab,  like  his  alter-ego,  Simon 
IMagus,  favored  fire  as  an  element.  Fire  issued 
from  this  flaming  star,  through  his  mouth,  for 
with  his  breath,  or  Spirit,  this  holy  man  could 
"  baptize  with  spirit  and  with  fire."  In  this 
Simonian  story  it  was  not  Simon  Avho  had  the 
disciples;  it  was  Akiba  (or  lakob),  and  he  had, 
not  twehe,  but  twelve  thousand,  which  expanded 
into  24,000,  and  other  more  generous  historians 
let  him  have  48,000,  who  supplied  the  nucleus  of 
an  army  for  this  Eastern  Star.  A  genealogical 
tree  was  grown  for  Simon  showing  his  direct  phys- 
ical, as  well  as  metaphysical  descent  from  David. 
Like  his  other  representation,  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora, 
Simon  Bar  Chochab  was  one  of  the  lestai,  as  were 
the  two  fellow-sufferers  with  the  Jesus  of  the  Gos- 
pels, and  his  alias,  Barabba ;  that  is  to  say, 
"  insurrectionists,"  a  word  so  used  by  Josephus, 
the  renegade  Jew,  but  mistranslated  "  robber  "  by 
Whiston.  Bar  Chochab  was  also  an  only-begot- 
ten son.  He  was  proclaimed  and  anointed  "  King 
of  the  Jews,"  by  Akiba.  He  led  the  Jews  against 
the  Romans,  who  are  also  represented  as  the  satan 
or  adversary,  of  his  people ;  and,  according  to  his 
historians,  took  possession  of  1035  places,  that  is, 
50  fortresses  and  985  towns,  though  where  they 
could  find  so  many  centers  of  human  habitation  in 
all  Palestine,  which  had  been  almost  depopulated 


142  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

by  Vespasian  and  Titus  at  the  fall  of  Jerusalem 
and  the  Dispersion  of  the  Jews,  is  difficult  to 
imagine.  And  this  enumeration  of  places  is,  of 
course,  independent  of  the  localities  which  must 
have  been  held  by  the  legions  of  Rome. 

This  story  of  the  second  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem by  the  Romans  has  all  the  extravagance  of 
a  Celtic  wonder-tale.  According  to  the  Talmud, 
Bar  Chochab  was  in  command  of  200,000  men,  not 
one  of  whom  but  could  tear  up  a  cedar  of  Leb- 
anon by  the  roots,  by  tying  to  the  tree  and  put- 
ting his  horse  at  full  gallop.  "  Such  was  Simon's 
strength  that  he  was  able  to  hurl  back  with  his 
knees  stones  discharged  from  the  Roman  ballis- 
tff,"  is  stated  seriously. 

The  stories  of  slaughter  in  battle  border  upon 
the  ludicrous.  According  to  the  Talmud,  in  relat- 
ing the  destruction  of  Either,  a  supposed  city  near 
Jerusalem,  which  cannot  now  be  located  (perhaps 
the  name  comes  from  the  root  BThR,  to  desolate, 
therefore  "  the  Desolated,"  that  is,  Jerusalem), 
blood  flowed  in  a  torrent  of  billions  of  gallons, 
with  such  terrific  momentum  that  it  carried 
stones  weighing  four  pounds  forty  miles  away. 
The  dead  covered  eighteen  square  miles.  These 
human  remains  made  such  a  solid  and  liquid  fer- 
tilizer that  farmers  did  not  have  to  manure  the 
soil  again  for  seven  years.  This  account  makes 
the  exaggeration  of  Josephus  appear  ultra-con- 
servative, when  in  Wars  VI,  8:5,  he  says  that 
in  Jerusalem  during  the  siege,  "  the  whole  City 


BAR  CHOCHAB  143 

ran  with  blood  to  such  a  degree,  indeed,  that  the 
conflagration  of  many  of  the  houses  was  quenched 
with  these  men's  blood." 

The  sanguinary-minded  writer  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse, whose  eyes  were  daily  filled  with  the  crimson 
horrors  of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  suffered  from 
similar  nightmares  of  blood,  for  in  Rev.  1  i:  20,  he 
speaks  of  "  blood  even  to  the  horses'  bridles  by  a 
space  of  1,600  furlongs." 

Another  fact  involving  the  credibility  of  the 
Bar  Chochab  legend  is  the  number  of  strange 
coincidences  connected  with  it.  One  of  these  is 
that  the  "  City  of  Either  "  was  destroyed  on  the 
ninth  of  Ab  (August)  the  very  day  and  month  of 
the  calendar  that  Jerusalem  was  destroyed  by 
Titus.  A  second  coincidence  is  that  the  man  who 
arrested  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  was  Rufus,  the  same 
individual  who,  according  to  the  Talmud,  fifty 
years  afterward  drove  a  plow  over  Jerusalem. 
Akiba's  age,  to  square  with  this  chronology,  had 
to  be  extended  to  the  patriarchal  term  of  120 
years,  at  which  ripe  age  his  life  was  cut  short  by 
the  odious  Turnus,  Tyrannus,  Tennius,  Titus 
Annius,  Tacinus  or  Terentius  Rufus.  With  all 
these  names  to  work  upon  it  is  no  wonder  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  usual  expositor's  practice,  Rufus 
was  multiplied  into  two  at  least  by  harmonist  his- 
torians in  order  to  utilize  his  second  personality 
in  filling  up  the  chronological  gap. 

The  Adrian  of  the  Bar  Chochab  legend  is  not 
the  Emperor  Adrian,  but  the  general  of  that  name 


144  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

who  fought  under  Titus  at  the  siege  of  Jerusalem. 

Another  point  of  coincidence  is  that  the  public 
career  of  Simon  Bar  Chochab  lasted  three  and 
a  half  years,  the  term  of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem, 
and  the  length  of  the  career  of  the  Jesus,  accord- 
ing to  the  Synoptics  and  the  Apocalypse. 

Simon  Bar  Chochab  is  said  to  have  struck  coins 
bearing  the  date  of  the  "  First  Year  of  the  De- 
liverance of  Israel."  None  of  these  are  now  ex- 
tant, for  the  very  good  reason,  no  doubt,  that 
the}^  never  did  exist.  One  of  the  coins  bearing 
the  inscription  above  quoted  and  ascribed  to  Bar 
Chochab  is  stricken  over  a  Roman  coin  bearing 
the  name  of  Titus.  It  is  evidently  one  of  the 
coins  struck  by  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  fifty  years 
previously,  wliile  Titus  was  besieging  Jerusalem, 
which  bore  the  identical  inscription  mentioned 
above. 

Akiba  was  also  known  in  the  Talmud  as  Ger 
Zedek,  a  translation  of  the  Latin  word  Justus 
which  was  the  name  or  title  of  the  clever  writer 
and  senator  of  the  city  and  region  of  Tiberias,  the 
Capernaum  of  the  Gospels,  in  condemnation  of 
whom  the  renegade  Josephus  devoted  an  entire 
chapter  (Life  §  65;  to  which  reply  is  made  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians).  This  Akiba  Justus,  or 
Jacobus  Justus  is  also  Jahobos  or  James  the  Just, 
alias  Jakobos  Mikros,  otherwise  the  Paulus  or 
Paul  mentioned  on  a  previous  page. 

It  seems  to  have  been  the  custom  of  the  times 
to    bestow    on    single    individuals    a    plurality    of 


BAR  CHOCHAB  145 

names.  It  is  stated  that,  when  Bar  Chochab's 
star  had  set,  pious  punsters,  mocking  at  his  de- 
feat, declared  his  name  was  not  Bar  Chochab, 
Son  of  a  Star,  but  Bar  Cozba,  or  Son  of  Lies,  a 
direct  descendant  of  the  Father  of  Lies. 

The  historical  confusion  surrounding  the  name 
of  Bar  Chochab  is  commented  upon  in  the  Jewish 
Encyclopedia,  as  follows : 

"  The  meagre  data  presented  are  so  uncertain  that 
the  very  name  of  the  hero  is  doubtful.  Everything 
else  pertaining  to  him  is  mythical.  .  .  .  Bar  Kokba 
.  .  .  appears  under  this  name  in  ecclesiastical  writers ; 
heathen  authors  do  not  mention  him,  and  Jewish 
sources  call  him  Ben  (or  Bar)  Koziba  or  Kozba.  .  .  . 
Others  believe  that  Bar  Koziba  was  a  contumelious 
appellation  (son  of  lies)  bestowed  after  the  unfortu- 
nate issue  of  the  revolt." 

The  Bar  Chochab  rebellion  rises  like  a  nightmare 
of  Bar  Gi'ora's  revolt.  Such  a  terrible  shock  to 
the  Jew,  the  utter  destruction  of  all  that  he  held 
sacred  upon  earth,  must  have  haunted  him  with 
its  horrors  in  his  dreams.  The  paralysis  of  all 
literary  effort  in  the  race  was  not  relieved  for 
generations.  This  is  why  the  chronology  of  the 
Talmud  is  so  confused  and  unreliable.  Pick,  in 
his  "  Jesus  in  the  Talmud,"  says,  "  We  must 
not  forget  that  the  Talmud,  in  relation  to  Jesus 
has  no  conception  of  chronology,  and,  indeed,  the 
later  the  origin  of  notices  about  Jesus,  the  more 
reckless  are  they  in  their  chronological  lapses." 


146  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  Talmud  makes  Akiba  a  contemporary  of 
the  Jesus  in  his  boyhood,  and  also  the  adviser  or 
discoverer  of  Bar  Chochab,  in  current  systems  of 
chronology,  a  century  later.  But  error  is  as  pos- 
sible in  the  record  of  the  end,  as  of  the  com- 
mencement of  his  career. 

The  Talmud  mentions  a  teacher  of  the  Jesus, 
called  Jeshua  Ben  Parachiah,  in  which  name  we 
haA'e  the  development  of  a  new  personality  out  of 
that  of  the  Jesus,  as  the  Jeshua  and  Ben  Para- 
chiah as  Bar  Barachiah.  They  have  taken  two 
epithets  of  Bar  Gi'ora  and  have  produced  a  new 
individuality  much  as  the  chemists,  by  the  union 
of  two  substances,  say  hydrogen  and  chlorine, 
produce  a  third  that  is  different  from  both. 


XX 

THE  SON  OF  MAN  AS  APOLLONIUS 

While  the  Talmud,  in  its  sketch  of  Simon  Bar 
Chochab,  gives  us  a  portrait  of  the  Son  of  Man 
as  seen  through  Jewish  eyes  of  idealization, 
Philostratus,  in  his  life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana, 
preserves  for  us  a  picture  of  the  same  individual 
as  drawn  by  the  hand  of  a  Greek  idealist. 

The  destroyer  of  the  Goim  is  mentioned  nomi- 
natim  in  Revelation  9:11;  and,  like  many  other 
cryptic  terms  occurring  in  the  New  Testament,  it 
is  accompanied  by  an  alleged  Semitic  equivalent 
term,  to  confound  the  censorious  reader  unfa- 
miliar with  certain  kinds  of  composition.  In  this 
instance  Abaddon  is  given  as  the  equivalent  of 
Apolluon,  or  Apollyon.  This  Apollyon  is  the 
"  Angel  of  the  Deep,"  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
"  Abussos  "  or  "  Abyssus,"  the  very  word  used  by 
the  Septuagint,  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis, 
where  we  are  told  that  "  In  the  beginning  .  .  . 
darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep,^^  the  un- 
plumbed  depths  of  illimitable  space. 

The  "  Lord  of  the  Abyss  "  and  "  god  of  life  and 
knowledge  "  was  Ea,  Enki,  or  Oannes,  the  second 
person    of    the    Babylonian    trinity.     Like    the 

147 


148  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Logos,  or  second  person  of  Plato's  trinity,  he  was 
the  Creator  of  the  world,  the  inventor  of  thought, 
speech,  letters,  literature,  reason,  civilization,  in 
short,  the  Word,  He  is  represented  in  Babylo- 
nian mythology  as  half  fish  and  half  man.  The 
fish  was  a  symbol  of  the  primitive  Christians. 

The  fish,  of  course,  is  a  fitting  symbol  of  the 
"  Angel  of  the  Deep,"  or  ApoUuon.  This 
"  Lord  of  the  Abyss  "  or  "  god  of  life  "  who  arises 
out  of  and  goes  to  sleep  in  the  deep,  is  the  Sun, 
the  "  far  darting  Phoibus  Apollon,"  to  Avhom 
Apollonius  offered  bloodless  sacrifice. 

The  Apolluon  of  the  Apocalypse  was  the  King 
of  the  Akrides,  who  came  out  of  the  depths  {de 
pTofuTidis)  as  instruments  of  Yahweh  to  destroy 
all  men  who  have  not  the  seal  of  the  covenant. 

This  Apolluon  is,  evidently,  Apollonius  the 
Tyanaeus,  the  "  Tyrannus  "  mentioned  in  Acts 
19:9,  in  whose  school  at  Ephesus,  we  are  told, 
Paul  disputed  for  two  years.  Apollonius  is  said 
to  have  been  born  in  the  same  year  as  that  as- 
sumed for  the  birth  of  the  Jesus,  that  is,  four 
years  before  the  beginning  of  the  present  era. 
By  many  he  is  thought  to  be  the  Jesus  as  seen 
from  the  Greek  point  of  vieAv.  He  is  said  to  have 
studied  grammar  in  Paul's  city  of  Tarsus,  and 
was  no  mean  "  citizen  of  no  mean  city." 

The  life  of  Apollonius  by  Philostratus,  which 
did  not  appear  until  the  first  quarter  of  the  third 
century,  is  said  to  be  based  on  earlier  documents, 
particularly  upon  the  writings  of  one  Damis,  a 


SON  OF  MAN  AS  APOLLONIUS      149 

name  suspiciously  like  "  Thomas,"  the  "  Twin  " 
brother  of  the  Son  of  Man,  the  "  smaller " 
brother,  afterwards  called  "  mikros  "  and  Paul. 

Apollonius'  birth  was  miraculously  announced, 
for  the  god  Proteus  appeared  to  his  mother,  and 
when  she  asked  him  what  sort  of  a  child  she  would 
bear,  he  said  "  Myself."  Considering  the  various 
forms  of  him  we  have  shown,  he  certainly  pos- 
sessed the  versatility  of  such  a  parent.  Just  as 
the  hour  of  his  birth  approached,  his  mother  was 
told  in  a  dream  to  go  out  into  the  meadow  and 
pick  flowers.  She  fell  asleep  in  the  grass,  where- 
upon the  swans  that  fed  in  the  meadow  danced 
around  her,  singing  as  they  danced.  Just  at  the 
moment  of  his  birth  a  thunderbolt  dropped  to- 
ward the  earth  and  ascended  again  toward  the 
heavens  where  it  disappeared.  When  sixteen 
years  of  age  Apollonius  became  a  student  of  Py- 
thagoras, almost  the  same  age  as  the  Jesus  of  the 
Luke  when  found  among  the  doctors.  Apollonius 
went  to  Aegae  to  live  in  the  temple  of  Asklepios, 
son  of  Apollo,  Helios,  Avhere  occurred  his  first 
miracle  of  healing  a  certain  ^^oung  man,  an  As- 
syrian, who  had  the  dropsy.  According  to 
Philostratus'  Life,  Apollonius  performed  many 
other  miracles.  Book  iv,  20,  tells  of  how  he  cast 
out  a  devil,  an  unclean  spirit,  from  a  youth  of 
Corcyra.  Book  vi,  35,  relates  that  at  Tarsus  he 
cured  a  boy  who  had  been  bitten  by  a  mad  dog. 

He  also  raised  from  the  dead  a  certain  damsel, 
the  daughter  of  a  ruler,  who  had  died  just  at  the 


150  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

moment  of  her  marriage,  as  we  learn  from  Book 
iv,  45.  Touched  by  the  grief  of  the  bridegroom  he 
approached  the  funeral  procession  and  said,  "  Put 
down  the  bier,  for  I  would  stay  those  tears,"  and 
those  that  bore  the  bier  stood  still.  He  asked 
the  damsel's  name,  and,  stooping  down,  he  touched 
her  and  whispered  something  in  her  ear.  And  she 
that  was  dead  sat  up,  began  to  speak,  and  re- 
turned to  her  father's  house.  The  relatives  of 
the  maiden  wished  to  present  him  with  150,000 
sesterces,  which  he  magnanimously  refused  for 
himself,  but  generously  gave  to  the  maiden  for  a 
dowry.  The  fame  of  this  miracle  spread  abroad, 
for  the  whole  of  the  city  was  mourning  for  her, 
as  the  maiden  belonged  to  a  consular  family. 

In  Book  iii,  39,  we  read  how  Apollonius  cured 
a  lame  man,  and  also  a  man  who  had  a  withered 
hand.  We  are  likewise  told  that  he  restored  the 
sight  of  both  eyes  to  an  unfortunate  man. 

In  Book  iii,  38,  we  read  how  Apollonius  cast 
out  a  spirit  from  the  sixteen  year  old  son  of  a 
poor  woman. 

He  predicted  an  earthquake  in  Ionia  and  he 
prophesied  a  pestilence  in  Ephesus.  A  committee 
of  Ephesians  visited  him  at  Smyrna  and  invited 
him  to  go  with  them  to  their  city  to  stay  the 
plague.  He  consented  to  go,  and  instantly  he 
was  translated  to  Ephesus,  thirty-five  miles  away, 
with  the  alacrity,  celerity  and  ease  of  a  saint  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  after  the  introduction  of  the 
"  knowledge  "  of  bilacation  into  scholastic  philos- 


SON  OF  MAN  AS  APOLLONIUS      151 

ophy.  He  put  a  stop  to  the  plague  by  having  it 
stoned  to  death,  for  he  found  it  incarnated  in  a 
ragged  old  beggar,  who  was  in  reality  a  devil, 
which  a  thorough  and  conscientious  stoning 
transformed  into  a  dead  dog,  or  what  had  the 
physical  appearance  of  a  dead  dog  after  the  ef- 
ficient Ephesians  had  finished  their  work. 

Though  consulted  by  Vespasian  and  Titus  for 
his  wisdom,  he  did  not  win  the  friendship  of  the 
wicked  Domitian,  who  caused  the  arrest  and  im- 
prisonment of  Apollonius  upon  an  omnibus 
charge.  He  was  tried  before  his  accuser  for  be- 
ing a  magician,  although  the  word  Goes  is  used 
and  not  Magos,  which  appears  to  have  been  stu- 
diously avoided  in  connection  with  this  man ;  for 
the  wise  men  of  the  east  did  not  come  to  Apol- 
lonius ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  Apollonius  went  to 
the  wise  men,  the  sages  of  India.  He  was  charged 
with  affecting  a  life  different  from  all  others,  of 
never  eating  animal  meat  and  of  never  wearing 
any  garment  made  of  material  taken  from  the 
body  of  an  animal,  of  never  drinking  wine  at  all, 
as  he  was  known  least  of  all  for  being  a  wine- 
bibber  or  producer. 

He  was  charged  with  permitting  men  to  call  him 
a  god.  He  was  further  accused  of  offering  a  hu- 
man sacrifice  of  an  Arcadian  boy,  though  he  never 
took  the  life  of  any  animal  or  offered  a  bloody 
sacrifice  to  any  god.  One  can  see  in  this  same 
charge  of  child  sacrifice  afterward  made  against 
the  early  Christians,  and  centuries  later  against 


152  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  Jews  of  Kishinev,  the  persistent  survival 
through  ages  of  an  execrable  superstitious  ca- 
lumny. 

After  making  his  defense  before  Domitian, 
about  noon,  he  vanished  suddenly  from  the  pres- 
ence of  the  astonished  tyrant,  and  at  dusk  he  en- 
tered Calypso's  Cave  of  the  Nymphs  at  Dicjear- 
chia,  or  Puteoli,  another  of  the  places  mentioned 
in  the  Pauline  Epistles,  and  appeared  before 
two  of  his  disciples,  Demetrius  and  Damis. 
Damis,  Thomas-like,  refused  to  believe  the  ap- 
parition was  the  physical  body  of  Apollonius  un- 
til he  had  touched  him  with  his  hand.  The  three 
went  into  Demetrius'  house,  where  Apollonius 
washed  his  feet.  The  disciples  had  their  supper, 
but  the  master,  after  he  had  sung  an  hymn,  fell 
into  a  sleep,  so  welcome  after  his  long  aerial  voy- 
age from  Rome.  Next  day  he  entered  a  ship  and 
sailed  away  to  Sicil3\ 

Thence  he  departed  for  Olympia,  where  he 
spent  forty  days  and  forty  nights.  Later  he 
landed  at  Ephesus,  and  while  delivering  an  ad- 
dress to  the  Ephesians,  he  stopped  in  the  middle 
of  the  discourse  to  tell  his  auditors  that  at  that 
precise  moment  Domitian  was  being  done  to  death 
by  Stephen,  a  freedman.  He  clearly  saw  that 
tragedy  which  was  occurring  at  Rome,  a  thousand 
miles  away. 

Apollonius  did  not  die,  but  was  assumed  up  into 
heaven  in  the  temple  of  Dict3aina.  He  had  been 
placed  in  bonds  by  the  guardians  of  the  temple 


SON  OF  MAN  AS  APOLLONIUS      153 

for  having  by  some  subtle  influence  charmed  the 
savage  watch-dog  that  kept  ward  over  the  temple, 
much  as  Daniel  had  subdued  the  fierce  lions. 
About  midnight  the  shackles  fell  from  his  limbs, 
the  doors  of  the  temple  opened  to  receive  him,  and, 
as  he  ascended  into  heaven,  a  choir  of  maidens 
was  heard  singing,  "  jNIake  haste  from  earth?! 
Make  haste  to  heaven  !     Make  haste !  " 

As  in  the  conventional  history  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  Apollonius  subsequently  appeared  to  one  of 
his  disciples.  This  man  had  lost  his  faith  in  im- 
mortality,  and  Apollonius   converted  him. 

Likewise  a  shrine  was  erected  to  Apollonius  at 
Tyana,  in  Cappadocia,  or  White  S^a'ia,  in  the 
heart  of  Asiatic  Turkey  of  today,  where  he  was 
worshipped  as  a  god. 


XXI 

THE  TELL-TALE  GREEK  ARTICLE 

Having  sIioami  how  the  essential  features  of  the 
Son  of  Man  may  be  positively  recognized  in  his 
portraits  labeled  "  Simon  Magus,"  "  Menandros," 
"  Apollonius,"  etc.,  attention  is  now  directed  to 
the  negative  proof  of  his  real  identity  supplied  by 
the  use  of  the  Greek  article  which  demonstrates 
that  "  the  Jesus  "  was  not  the  name  but  an  hon- 
orific title  of  the  Son  of  Man. 

The  rule  governing  the  use  of  the  Greek  article, 
according  to  all  authorities  and  as  set  forth  by 
Kiihner  in  his  Greek  Grammar,  is  that  "  Personal 
proper  names  as  such  ...  do  not  take  the  ar- 
ticle." From  this  it  follows  that  when  a  writer 
of  Greek  employs  the  article  before  a  word  he  does 
not  intend  that  his  readers  should  regard  such  a 
word  as  a  personal  proper  name. 

The  word  lesons,  that  is  "  Jesus,"  is  found  al- 
most invariably,  in  the  Greek  texts  of  the  Gos- 
pels and  Acts,  preceded  by  the  definite  article  ho, 
or  "  the."  The  exceptions  occur  in  the  first  chap- 
ters of  each  Gospel,  which  are  later  legendary  ad- 
ditions to  these  documents.  The  other  books  of 
the  New  Testament,  the  Epistles  and  the  Apoca- 
lypse, omit  the  article  altogether  in  such  connec- 
154 


THE  TELL-TALE  GREEK  ARTICLE      155 

tion.  Thus  the  designation,  "  the  Jesus,"  or 
"  the  Liberator,"  or  "  the  Restorer,"  which  we 
find  in  the  Gospels  and  Acts,  integrates  in  the 
Epistles  into  the  name,  Jesus. 

This  is  in  accordance  with  the  usual  process  of 
the  formation  of  family  names.  The  new  baker 
who  moved  into  a  new  community  was  first  called 
*'  the  baker  "  by  those  who  did  not  know  any  other 
name  to  call  him,  and  subsequently  he  became 
known  as  Baker,  and  later  as  Mr.  Baker.  In 
like  manner  did  "  the  carpenter  "  evolve  into  Car- 
penter. 

But  "  the  Jesus  "  is  not  the  only  designation  in 
the  New  Testament  which  thus  grew  into  a  name. 
The  same  process  is  to  be  seen  with  "  the  Petros," 
"the  Rock,"  or  as  "the  Peter,"  "the  First- 
Born,"  "the  Peilatos,"  ("the  Prailatos  ")  and 
"  the  Judas."  "  The  Paulus  "  of  the  Acts,  that 
is,  "  the  Mikros,"  or  "  the  Little,"  becomes  Paulus 
of  the  Epistles,  that  is,  Paul,  otherwise  St.  Paul. 

The  fact  that  we  never  find  the  article  used 
before  real  names  such  as  Moses,  Aaron,  Elias, 
David,  Daniel,  Alexander,  Rufus,  Zacharias, 
Jairus,  Jonas,  Solomon,  Zacchaeus,  Isaac,  Jacob, 
Philip,  Festus,  or  a  score  of  other  names,  tends 
to  prove  that  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament 
were  not  ignorant  of  the  rule  in  Greek  governing 
the  use  of  the  article.  It  also  proves  that  these 
writers  regarded  the  terms  they  qualified  by  the 
definite  article  as  merely  descriptive  designations 
and  not  personal  proper  names. 


156  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  looked  upon  by  his  country- 
men in  the  days  of  his  ascendency,  as  the  Restorer 
of  the  kingdom  of  David  upon  its  ancient  geo- 
graphical foundations, —  the  "  Soter,"  as  Jose- 
phus  says  they  called  him,  that  is  the  Savior,  or 
the  Liberator,  of  his  people,  "  the  Jeshua  "  in 
Hebrew  or  "  the  Jesus  "  to  the  Hellenized  Jews, 
becomes  Jesus,  the  Son  of  Man,  and  subsequently 
Jesus,  when  the  fact  had  long  been  forgotten  that 
the  phrase,  "  Son  of  Man  "  is  but  a  literal  trans- 
lation of  "  Bar  Gi'ora." 

The  name  Simon  is  applied  to  "  the  Petros,"  or 
"  the  Peter,"  in  the  oldest  of  the  Gospels,  the 
Mark,  in  but  one  instance  outside  the  first  chap- 
ter and  the  legend  of  the  calling  of  the  apostles  in 
the  third, —  and  that  is  in  14 :  37 :  "  And  he  said 
unto  the  Peter  Simon  sleepest  thou?"  This  can 
be  readily  explained  by  the  fact  that  "  Simon," 
in  the  Semitic  text  was  treated  as  a  genitive, 
and  the  sentence  was  thus  translated,  "  And  he 
said  unto  the  Firstborn  of  Simon,  '  Art  thou 
asleep?'" 

In  the  John,  the  latest  of  all  the  Gospels,  in  19 
out  of  32  references  the  name  Simon  accompanies 
the  designation  "  the  Petros,"  and  is  usually 
rendered  "  Simon  Peter,"  when  the  Semite  who 
wrote  it  evidently  meant  thereby  "  Simon's  peter," 
or  "  Simon's  firstborn,"  that  is,  "  Simon's  Eldest." 
In  the  Matthew  "  the  Peter  "  occurs  twenty-four 
times,  while  "  Simon  "  is  found  but  four  times,  and 


THE  TELL-TALE  GREEK  ARTICLE      157 

these  four  are  doubtless  due  to  the  zeal  of  har- 
monists ;  but,  in  not  a  single  instance  does  the 
article  appear  before  the  word  Simon.  In  the 
Ac^s  "  The  Peter "  is  found  58  times  while 
"  Simon  "  occurs  but  four,  as  in  the  Luke  and 
for  the  same  reason.  The  name  Simon  is  not 
applied  at  all  to  Peter  in  any  of  the  fourteen 
Pauline  Epistles,  or  the  three  of  John,  or  in  the 
Epistle  of  James,  or  of  Jude,  or  in  the  Apoca- 
lypse. 

Once  in  the  New  Testament,  in  the  Matthew 
16:  17,  we  find  the  name  Simon  Bar-Iona  applied 
to  the  Peter.  We  know  that  the  word  "  son  " 
is  frequently  omitted  in  the  Greek  text,  where 
we  find  such  expressions  as  James  of  Zebedee. 
In  the  genealogical  table  in  the  Luke  1,  the  word 
is  omitted  in  seventy-three  places  in  the  Greek 
text,  but  it  is  supplied  in  each  of  the  seventy- 
three  instances  in  the  English  translations.  In 
IMatthew  16: 17,  therefore,  we  may  read  "  Blessed 
art  thou  son  of  Simon  Bar-Iona,"  for  the  word 
Simon  suffers  no  change  of  form  in  the  genitive 
case.  Now,  if  we  write  the  name  Simon  Bar  lona 
in  the  ancient  Hebrew  characters  such  as  are 
found  on  Hebrew  coins  and  in  which  manuscripts 
in  pre-Christian  times  were  written,  we  find  it 
differs  only  b}^  a  short  stroke  from  the  name 
Simon  Bar  Giora  when  written  in  letters  of  the 
same  alphabet.  This  can  best  be  seen  by  super- 
imposing  the   words   Bar   lona   upon   the   letters 


158  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Bar  Giora,  and  noticing  the  convincing  similarity, 
thus : 

'^^A^'\.1  ^   y    "  BAR  lONA  " 

"THAT-iny     "  BAR  GIORA  " 

It  must  be  understood  that  the  Hebrew  char- 
acters are  read  from  right  to  left  and  that  the 
third  letter  in  the  name  Bar  lona  is  what  is  called 
a  quiescent  letter,  never  transliterated  into  Greek. 
The  G  in  Giora  differs  only  by  a  slight  stroke 
from  the  quiescent  He  in  Brh  lonh,  or  Bar  lona. 
It  is  very  plain  to  one  who  carefully  examines  the 
ancient  letters  how  the  name  Simon  Bar  Giora 
came  to  be  corrupted  into  Simon  Bar  lona,  or 
Bar-jona,  in  the  Matthew  text. 


XXII 

THE  BOANERGES 

"  And  James,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  and  John  the  brother 
of  James;  and  he  surnamed  them  Boanerges,  which  is,  The 
sons  of  thimder." — Mark  3:17. 

The  above  quotation  is  an  excerpt  from  Mark's 
catalogue  of  the  Apostles.  John  and  James,  the 
so-called  Boanerges,  with  the  Peter,  as  he  is  al- 
most invariably  called  in  the  Greek  text,  appear 
in  the  Gospel  accounts  most  intimately  associated 
with  the  Son  of  Man,  and  for  very  natural  rea- 
sons, as  we  shall  show  hereafter.  Canon  Farrar 
says,  "  James,  John  and  Peter  belonged  to  the 
innermost  circle  —  the  eklekton  eklektoteroi  —  of 
our  Lord's  associates  and  friends." 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  they  are  the  only 
really  active  workers,  according  to  the  Gospels, 
the  other  nine  showing  no  energy  whatever,  and 
appear  to  be  of  so  little  account  that  the  Synop- 
tic writers  contradict  one  another  regarding  the 
very  names  of  these  silent  partners  of  the  thun- 
dering ones.  While  some  Gospel  harmonizers  can 
not  agree  on  identifying  Lebbeus,  Thaddeus  and 
Jude  as  a  single  individual,  while  others  seek  to 

merge  Nathaniel  with  Bartholomew,  and  while  the 

159 


160  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

names  of  Jakobos  Mikros  (improperly  rendered 
James  the  Less),  Simon  Zelotes  and  Simon  the 
Canaanite  are  passed  over  even  by  such  scholars 
as  Canon  Farrar  as  "  almost  totally  unknown," 
there  is  among  expositors  no  disagreement  about 
the  reality  and  importance  of  James  and  John. 
These  are  they  who  are  also  called  the  "  sons  of 
Zebedee,"  whose  mother  petitioned  the  Son  of  Man 
to  place  them  on  either  side  of  the  throne  when  his 
kingdom  should  be  established. 

The  strange  thing  about  the  text  quoted  is  that 
Boanerges  does  not  mean  "  The  sons  of  thunder," 
or  huioi  brontes,  as  the  phrase  is  in  the  Greek 
text.  The  real  Hebrew  for  the  phrase  "  sons  of 
thunder  "  is  Bnai  raam.  The  commonly  accepted 
etymology  for  Boanerges  is  Bnai  fegesh,  which 
does  not  mean  "  sons  of  thunder,"  but  "  sons  of 
tumult,"  or  "  sons  of  riot,"  or  "  sons  of  sedition." 

The  exact  etymology  of  Boanerges  is  Bnai 
herges,  the  final  letter  transliterating  the  Hebrew 
Tav,  which  is  pronounced  as  s.  This  gives  us  in 
Greek,  not  huioi  brontes,  but  huioi  broton,  the 
English  equivalent  of  both  Hebrew  and  Greek 
phrases  being  "  sons  of  carnage,"  or  "  sons  of 
slaughters,"  a  title  flattering  to  "  lords  of  hosts," 
if  not  to  "  princes  of  peace." 

This  phrase  is  also  the  exact  equivalent  of  that 
other,  "  the  sons  of  Zebedee."  The  supposed 
Hebrew  equivalent  for  "  Zebedee "  is  Zbdi,  a 
group  of  letters  which  a  careless  transcriber,  by 
the  mere  omission  of  a  short  vertical  line  in  the 


THE  BOANERGES  161 

third  letter,  would  write  for  Zbhi,  which  means 
"  slaughter." 

Why  the  mother  of  the  Boanerges  should  be 
generally  referi'ed  to  by  the  circumlocution  of 
"  the  mother  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee,"  instead  of 
"  the  mother  of  James  and  John,"  or,  "  the  wife 
of  Zebedee,"  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  this 
"  Zebedee  "  was  not  a  man  at  all. 

Confirmatory  of  this  et^anology,  as  well  as  of 
the  historicity  of  John,  is  an  obscure  passage  in 
Josephus  (Wars  IV,  3:5):  "To  kill  them  off 
they  sent  one  John,  the  most  expert  in  slaughter 
of  them  all  —  wherefore,  in  the  local  idiom,  he  is 
called  '  the  son  of  Dorcas  ' —  who,  with  ten  others, 
armed  with  daggers,  entered  the  jail  and  killed 
them  all  together." 

As  the  passage  stands  —  aside,  perhaps,  from 
the  calumny' it  may  contain  —  there  is  no  sense 
to  it.  How  is  the  phrase,  "  the  son  of  Dorcas  " 
explanatory,  or  confirmatory  of  the  other  phrase, 
"  the  most  expert  in  slaughter?  "  Indeed,  it  has 
no  relevance  to  it  at  all,  and  it  appears  to  be 
dragged  in  without  any  rational  excuse.  The 
name  "  Dorcas  "  is  nowhere  else  mentioned  by 
Josephus,  nor  have  we  any  other  knowledge  from 
this  writer  that  a  being  bearing  such  a  name  ever 
existed  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Moreover,  the 
word  dorkados,  is  not  in  the  local  Semitic  idiom, 
but  is  the  genitive  case  of  the  Greek  word  dorkas. 

From  the  words  "  local  idiom  "  we  must  infer 
that  a  Semitic  phrase  has  been  replaced  in  the  text 


162  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

by  the  one  we  find  there  now.  Dorkas,  or  "  ante- 
lope," is  in  Hebrew  Tsbih.  Ts  in  Hebrew  is  rep- 
resented by  a  single  letter,  Tsade,  which  is  inter- 
changeable with  z  —  just  as  the  Hebrew  Tsion  is 
transliterated  both  "  Sion  "  and  "  Zion  " ;  Tsbih 
easily  becomes  zbih,  and  zbhi  is  Hebrew  for 
"  slaughters."  ^ 

So,  amending  the  text  of  Josephus,  we  read  the 
sentence  thus :  *'  To  kill  them  off  they  sent  one 
John,  the  most  expert  in  slaughter  of  them  all  — 
wherefore,  in  the  local  idiom,  he  is  called  '  the  son 
of  slaughters  ' —  who,  with  ten  others,  armed  with 
daggers,  entered  the  jail  and  slew  them  all  to- 
gether."    The  term  seems  particularly  applicable 

1  Now  this  "  son  of  Dorcas,"  or  rather,  "  son  of  the  an- 
telope," or  "son  of  the  gazelle,"  Bar  Tsbih,  or  more  fully 
Bar  Tsabmh,  otherwise  Bar  Tsabah,  or  "  son  of  war," 
evolved  also  into  Bar  Saba,  or  "  son  of  peace,"  as  we  find 
him  called  in  Acts  1 :  23,  where,  in  connection  with  his  other 
alias  of  Justus  he  appears  imder  the  name  of  Barsabas. 
As  a  "  son  of  peace  "  he  further  evolved  into  one  of  the  two 
sons  of  Salome,  as  Salome  also  signifies  "  peace." 

The  name  Joseph  added  to  "  Barsabbas  "  in  the  text  of 
the  Acts  is,  evidently  a  redimdancy,  for  if  his  name  were 
Joseph  Barsabbas  he  could  not  have  been  "  surnamed 
Justus,"  for  he  was  already  surnamed.  Joseph  and  Sabbas, 
or  Sabas,  are  one  name  which  is  variously  written  in  the 
Old  Testament  as  Asaba  (Septuagint),  Josibiah,  Josiphiah, 
Josephia  (Septuagint),  etc.  The  name  was,  doubtless,  Bar 
Saba,  or  Bar  Zaba,  a  variant  of  Bar  Sabdi,  or  Bar  Zabdi, 
flattened  out  through  the  Greek  into  "  son  of  Zebedee." 
The  Beth,  He,  Daleth,  and  Kaph  are  frequently  confused 
in  different  Hebrew  manuscripts,  and  the  same  word  is 
foimd  in  several  manuscripts  as  Zabhi,  Zabdi,  Zabi  and 
Zaki.  Schott  (Isagog.  103,  p.  43)  is  authority  for  the  state- 
ment that  "Zabas  is  an  abbreviated  form  for  Zebedee." 


THE  BOANERGES  163 

to  those  who,  according  to  Luke  9 :  54,  would 
"  command  fire  from  heaven  "  to  slaughter  the  in- 
habitants of  some  Samarian  village. 

It  will  be  observed  also  that  the  term  Boanerges 
is  an  anagram  for  Ben  Georas,  which  may  not  be 
accidental,  as  appears  from  the  strained  use  of 
the  o  in  the  first  syllable,  where  it  does  not  belong. 

The  John  referred  to  by  Josephus  is  John,  of 
Gischala,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Jewish  revolt 
against  Rome,  who  was  scarcely  less  libelled  by 
the  traitor  Josephus  than  was  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora, 
the  Son  of  Man.  The  name  "  son  of  carnage  " 
was  given  him  as  a  title  of  high  honor  for  his 
valor  as  a  warrior  and  for  the  effectiveness  upon 
the  Romans  of  his  terrible,  swift  sword.  It  is 
likely  that  the  incident  quoted  above  from  Jose- 
phus is  no  more  than  a  cruel  calumny  invented  by 
the  traitor  to  give  his  own  reason  for  the  hon- 
orable title  attaching  to  John,  who  apparently 
was  designated  "  the  son  of  the  sword,"  or 
"  hero," —  that  is  to  say,  "  Boanerges." 

James,  the  brother  of  John,  of  the  Gospels, 
plays  many  roles  in  the  New  Testament.  He  is 
James,  the  Just;  and  the  Justus  of  Josephus. 
His  is  the  name  mistranslated  "  James,  the  Less." 
Jakobos  Mikros  is  the  Greek  so  translated.  Jaco- 
bus Paulus  would  be  the  Latin  equivalent.  As 
an  Englishman  he  would  be  plain  James  Little; 
for  "  Little,"  not  "  Less,"  is  the  correct  meaning 
of  "  Mikros  "  and  Paulus  or  Paul.  According 
to  Eusebius  (H.  E.  II,  23),  he  was  the  brother 


164  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

of  Jesus  —  thus  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  John  and 
Paul  were  brothers.  Indeed  Tacitus,  in  his  His- 
tory V,  12,  gives  the  name  Bar  Gioras  to  John, 
thus  confirming  the  anagram  —  Ben  Georas  — 
referred  to  heretofore.  Similarly  an  alias  of 
Paul's  is  given  in  the  New  Testament  as  Saulus  or 
Saul,  which  means  "  destroyer  " —  or  "  slaugh- 
terer." The  common  belief  that  Paul  did  not 
know  the  Jesus  in  life  is  disproven  by  I  Cor.  9:  1, 
and  II  Cor.  5 :  16,  and  also  by  Acts  20 :  35,  where 
Paul  quoted  from  the  Son  of  Man  a  saying  not 
found  elsewhere :  "  It  is  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive." 

We  know  from  St.  Jerome  that  there  was  a 
legend  extant  in  liis  time  that  Paul  was  a  native 
of  Gischala,  the  home,  according  to  Josephus,  of 
John,  the  great  general  of  the  Jews,  second  only 
to  the  Son  of  Man. 

James,  as  Justus,  was  heartily  hated  by  the 
renegade  Josephus,  for  telling  some  truths  about 
the  traitor.  The  "  History  "  of  Justus  did  not 
have  to  pass  the  editorial  censorship  of  Titus  and 
Vespasian  to  be  "  corrected  "  by  them,  as  Jose- 
phus so  cravenly  boasts  regarding  his  works. 
The  History  written  by  Justus  has  been  utterly 
lost  if,  indeed,  it  be  not  this  day  represented  in 
four  separate  and  successive  editions  in  the  four 
Gospels,  not  merely  edited  or  censored  but  over- 
hauled, made  over,  and  made  cryptic  in  compari- 
son with  the  original  by  clever,  zealous  ecclesias- 
tical hands. 


THE  BOANERGES  165 

Josephus  says  that  Justus  was  "  the  most 
sagacious  of  writers,  a  master  of  the  epistolary 
art."  His  extant  epistolary  writings,  under  an- 
other Latinized  form  of  his  name,  are  still  read 
with  religious  admiration  and  edification. 

Thomas,  a  designation  given  to  "  one  of  the 
Twelve,"  is  not  a  Hebrew  name  at  all,  nor  was  it 
intended  as  such  by  the  writer  of  the  original 
Semitic  text.  The  Hebrew  word  from  which  it 
is  said  to  have  been  derived  is  thoam,  which  means 
"  twin,"  that  is,  "  twin  brother,"  a  common,  not 
a  proper  noun.  Apparently  to  make  this  fact 
plainer  the  Greek  word  didymus,  which  translates 
thoam,  as  it  also  means  "  twin,"  is  given  as  a 
variant.  This  doubting  twin  brother  of  the  Son 
of  Man  is  the  brother  who  early  showed  lack  of 
faith  in  and  even  opposition  to  the  aims  of  the 
Jesus,  but  who  eventually  deified  him  and  crowned 
him  with  cryptic  immortality.  Didymus  was  not 
the  Greek  translation  of  an  Aramaic  name  as  was 
Huios  tou  Anthropou,  or  "  Son  of  Man,"  and 
was  intended  only  to  designate  the  kinship  between 
Jakohos  Mikros,  Jacobus  Justus,  Justus  Barsab- 
bas,  Saulus,  Pavlus,  or  Paul,  and  "  the  brother 
whose  praise  is  in  the  Gospel." 

Andrew,  one  of  the  Twelve,  brother  of  Simon, 
appears  to  be  not  a  brother  so  much  as  a  dupli- 
cation of  Simon  (Bar  Gi'ora),  for  Andreia,  the 
root  of  the  proper  name  Andreas,  means 
"  manly,"  or  "  manhood,"  merely  a  Greek  trans- 
lation of  the  Semitic  "  Giora." 


166  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  practice  of  translating  personal  names 
from  the  vernacular  into  the  languages  of  Greece 
and  Rome  has  come  down  almost  to  our  own  day. 
Philip  Schwartzerd  translated  himself  into  Philip 
Melancthon;  Desiderius  Erasmus  made  an  im- 
mortal name  for  himself  by  translating  his  fath- 
er's first  name,  Gerhard,  into  Greek  for  a  surname 
and  into  Latin  for  a  first  name.  Constantino 
Fran9ois  Chasseboeuf  translated  his  last  name 
into  Phoenician,  and  became  the  famous  Volney. 
Rene  des  Cartes  Latinized  himself  into  Renatus 
Cartesius,  and  Baruch  Spinoza  became  Benedict 
when  he  forsook  Hebrew  for  Latin  letters.  The 
name  of  the  Median  woman,  Sparko,  who  reared 
Cyrus  the  Elder,  was  translated  into  Greek  as 
Kuno  (a  dog). 

The  habit  of  turning  names  into  the  language 
of  the  ruling  power  obtains  even  today.  Some 
Celts,  who  have  ceased  speaking  their  ancestral 
language,  Anglicize  their  names  by  translation. 
MacDuff  translates  himself  into  Black,  MacGla- 
shin  changes  into  Green,  Lee  fades  into  Gray ;  as 
Mikros  became  Paulus,  so  O'Beg  becomes  Little; 
while  McGowan  is  contented  to  call  himself  Smith. 


XXIII 
THE  GEENNA  OF  FIRE 

If  the  Boanerges  suggested  to  the  Son  of  Man 
that  they  procure  fire  from  heaven  with  which  to 
visit  his  enemies,  it  was  from  the  Romans  he  de- 
rived the  hint  of  using  fire  as  a  disciplinary  force. 

The  term  "  geenna  "  which  is  translated  "  hell," 
occurs  eleven  times  in  the  New  Testament,  six  in 
the  Matthew  Gospel  (5:22,  29;  10:28;  18:9; 
23:15,  33),  three  in  parallel  passages  of  the 
Mark  (9:43,  45,  47),  once  in  the  Luke  (12:5), 
and  once  in  the  Epistle  of  James  (3:  6).  It  does 
not  occur  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  the  Apocalypse 
or  in  any  of  the  Pauline  Epistles. 

It  is  found  nowhere  in  any  pre-existing  Greek 
literature.  It  is  commonly  said  to  be  derived  from 
"  Gai  Ben  Hinnom,"  or,  the  "  Valley  of  the  Son  of 
Hinnom,"  because,  as  some  say,  human  sacrifices 
were  offered  there  to  Moloch,  the  god  of  the  Am- 
monites, which  would  be  an  abomination  in  the 
eyes  of  the  orthodox ;  but,  as  the  article  ha,  "  the," 
precedes  the  Mlk,  others  think  these  sacrifices 
were  made  to  Yahweh  as  "  Ha  Melek  "  or  "  the 
king."  Others,  again,  derive  "  geenna "  from 
"  Gai  Ben  Hinnom,"  because,  as  they  say,  the 
garbage  of  Jerusalem  was  cremated  or  destroyed 

167 


168  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

in  that  "  Valley  of  the  Son  of  Annihilation."  It 
is  very  doubtful,  in  spite  of  II  Kings  and  the 
Chronicles,  that  there  ever  was  any  human  sacri- 
fice offered  to  a  strange  god  there,  and  it  is  very 
certain  that  there  was  no  regularly  established 
practice  of  burning  children  alive  in  that  place  to 
delight  any  deity,  domestic  or  foreign.  It  is  a 
fact,  at  any  rate,  that  no  human  sacrifices  were 
offered  there  since  the  seventh  century  before  the 
Christian  era,  a  period  which  antedated  this  era 
as  much  as  that  of  the  last  of  the  crusades  does 
our  own ;  and,  certainly,  long  enough  for  any  such 
occurrences  to  have  passed  out  of  the  general  con- 
sciousness of  the  people.  The  assumption  that  a 
garbage  crematory  was  maintained  in  Gai  Ben 
Hinnom  is  utterly  without  any  foundation  in 
fact.  The  Jews,  however,  in  their  last  war  for 
liberty,  employed  against  the  Romans  a  liquid 
fire  of  burning  pitch,  saltpetre  and  brimstone, 
such  as  later  came  to  be  known  as  "  Greek  fire." 
This  flaming  fire  was  generated  in  copper  caul- 
drons, known  by  the  Latin  name  of  aena,  or  ahena 
(the  plurals  of  aemim  and  ahenum),  captured  by 
Eleazar,  a  son  of  Simon,  from  Cestius,  when  he 
cast  the  Roman  general  out  of  Jerusalem.  See 
Josephus,  Wars  II,  19:9.  This  word,  because 
of  the  Semitic  proclivity  to  the  use  of  the  pros- 
thetic g  in  words  beginning  with  a  vowel,  nat- 
urally came  to  be  pronounced  "  ga-ena,"  or,  per- 
haps, "  gahena,"  terms  the  New  Testament  writ- 
ers  rendered  into  Greek  phonetics  as  "  geenna." 


THE  GEENNA  OF  FIRE  169 

In  a  similar  manner  g  is  used  as  a  prosthetic  let- 
ter in  the  names  Amorrha  and  Azzah,  making  them 
Gomorrha  and  Gaza. 

From  Josephus'  Wars  and  the  contents  of  the 
Gospels  we  glean  that  the  bodies  of  executed 
traitors  were  disposed  of  by  being  cast  into  these 
ahena  or  geenna,  and  this  punishment  was  uti- 
lized as  a  double  deterrent  to  the  treasonably- 
minded  ;  for,  to  a  believer  in  the  Resurrection,  the 
punishment  of  death  was  a  trifling  matter  com- 
pared with  the  destruction  of  that  body  which  he 
hoped  would  arise  again  from  the  dreamless  sleep 
of  death  on  that  great  day  of  the  Restoration  of 
the  Kingdom  of  David,  when  Israel  would  triumph 
over  all  the  earth  in  the  fulfilment  of  Yahweh's 
covenant  with  his  Chosen  People. 

In  those  later  terrible  days  of  the  siege  when 
gaunt  and  ghastly  famine  stalked  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem  levying  her  toll  of  thousands,  it  be- 
came necessary  for  the  heroic  Son  of  Man  to  use 
strategic  military  measures  to  prevent  a  stam- 
pede of  the  starving  men  to  the  Roman  mess  tents 
just  outside  the  walls  of  the  city,  and  freely  open 
to  deserting  Jews.  To  believers  in  the  Resurrec- 
tion, the  Roman  darts  and  missiles  were  little  to 
be  feared.  The  worst  they  could  do  would  be  to 
destroy  life  which  the  Resurrection  would  restore. 
But  the  wretched  deserters,  designated  "  sinners  " 
in  the  Gospels  and  Acts,  who  were  caught  and 
slain,  and  their  dead  bodies  in  further  punishment 
cast  into  the  copper  cauldrons,  veritable  lakes  of 


170  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

fire,  lost,  as  the  multitude  believed,  all  chance  of 
revival  in  the  Resurrection  and  participation  in 
the  Kingdom  to  come, —  the  kingdom  of  David  re- 
established upon  its  ancient  foundations.  While 
the  body  retained  its  shape  and  its  organs  essen- 
tial to  terrestrial  life  upon  this  same  earth  after, 
as  before,  the  Resurrection,  it  possessed  life  in 
potentia  capable  of  developing  into  life  in  re,  into 
actuality  in  the  Awakening.  But,  shoiild  that 
body,  or  should  these  organs  become  destroyed  in 
the  copper  cauldrons  in  the  ahena,  geenna,  or 
"  Gehenna,"  or  lake  of  liquid  fire,  the  potential  life 
would  come  to  an  end  and  the  Resurrection  of  the 
body  would  become  utterly  impossible,  for  the 
very  pragmatic  reason  that  there  would  be  no 
body  to  resurrect.  This  thought  the  Son  of  Man 
carefully  impressed  upon  his  subjects,  causing 
it  to  be  proclaimed  from  the  top  of  the  Holy 
House :  "  What  I  told  you  in  secret,  speak  ye 
out  plainly  in  the  broad  day  light;  and  what  I 
whispered  in  your  ear,  that  proclaim  from  the 
Holy  House  tops :  '  Fear  not  them  who  kill  the 
body  but  are  not  able  to  kill  the  [potential]  life 
[to  come],  but  rather  fear  him  who  is  the  Power 
[Gt6/^ora]  to  destroy  both  body  and  [potential] 
life  in  the  ahena,'  "  or  copper  lake  of  fire.  (Matt. 
10:27-28).  This  strategy  of  casting  the  dead 
into  cauldrons  was  taught  the  Jews  by  Ptolemy 
(Jos.  Ant.  XIH,  12:6),  who  used  cauldrons  in 
his  policy  of  "  frightfulness  "  in  order  to  terrify 
the  Jewish  people  into  peaceful  submission. 


THE  GEENNA  OF  FIRE  171 

That  living  beings  were  sometimes  cast  into 
these  ahena  appears  probable  from  the  statement 
of  Tertullian  that  John,  the  reputed  author  of 
the  Apocalypse,  was  himself  cast  into  a  cauldron 
of  boiling  oil. 

According  to  Josephus  it  was  a  common  mode 
of  punishment  to  compel  men  to  cut  off  their  own 
hands  and  cast  th.em  from  them,  a  cruelty  which 
Josephus  admits  he  was  not  above  committing 
himself.  (See  his  Vita  34,  which  relates  his  pun- 
ishment of  Clitus;  also  Wars  II,  21:10  and 
Vita  30).  Such  punishment,  however  humilating, 
was  trifling  compared  with  the  destruction  of  the 
whole  body  by  fire.  A  true  believer  in  the  Resur- 
rection would  reason  thus :  "  It  is  expedient  for 
you  that  one  of  your  members  should  perish,  and 
not  that  your  whole  body  should  be  cast  into  the 
ahena  of  fire  "  (Matt.  5  :  30). 

The  streams  of  fire  that  could  not  be  quenched, 
as  they  ceaselessly  wended  their  worm-like  ways 
down  among  the  besieging  Romans,  were  terrible 
to  the  troops  of  Titus'  attacking  armies.  The 
diligent  manner  in  which  the  Jews  ladled  out  the 
liquid  fire  produced  in  the  enemy,  in  those  days 
before  the  invention  of  gunpowder  and  the  incen- 
diary shell,  a  distant  respect  for  the  "  worm  that 
dieth  not."  This  also  evidently  called  the  mind 
of  the  Son  of  Man  to  the  last  chapter  of  Isaiah. 
To  impress  this  vividly  upon  the  minds  of  his 
hearers,  he  three  times  repeated  the  quotation 
about  the  worm  and  the  quenchless  fire. 


172  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

This  chapter  of  Isaiah  is  the  crowning  one  of 
the  ancient  prophet  in  which  he  foretells  the  glor- 
ious day  of  his  race  when  it  shall  obtain  the 
mastery  over  the  world.  In  the  Jewish  theoc- 
rac}'^,  in  which  church  and  state  had  not  yet  been 
differentiated,  the  triumph  of  the  one  was  neces- 
sarily the  triumph  of  the  other.  The  god  whom 
they  had  chosen  from  among  all  the  gods  in  the 
heavens,  and  who  had  chosen  them  from  among 
all  the  peoples  of  the  earth,  would  make  their 
cause  his  cause  and  their  glory  his  glory. 

Accordingly  we  find  their  prophet  poetically 
dreaming  of  the  future  triumph  of  his  people 
trampled  under  the  feet  of  their  foes  until  the  day 
of  the  glorious  revenge,  for  which  their  hearts 
were  yearning,  should  arrive.  It  would  come  on 
with  a  rush,  "  from  one  new  moon  to  another  new 
moon,  from  one  sabbath  to  another  sabbath, 
when  all  flesh  shall  grovel  before  Yahweh  "  and 
his  chosen  people. 

"  For  behold  Yahweh  will  come  with  fire  and 
with  his  chariots  like  a  tornado,  to  render  his 
wrath  with  fury  and  his  castigation  with  flames 
of  fire.  For  by  fire  and  sword  will  Yahweh  visit 
and  desolate  all  flesh,  and  those  slain  by  Yahweh 
shall  be  many. 

"  And  they  shall  bring  all  your  brethren  out 
of  all  the  nations  (Goim)  as  an  offering  unto 
Yahweh,  upon  horses  and  in  chariots  and  in  lit- 
ters and  upon  mules  and  upon  dromedaries  to  my 
holv   mountain  Jerusalem,   saith  Yahweh,  as  the 


THE  GEENNA  OF  FIRE  173 

children  of  Israel  bring  their  offering  in  a  clean 
vessel  into  the  House  of  Yahweh  .   .   . 

"  For  as  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth 
which  I  shall  make  shall  be  everlasting  before 
Yahweh,  so  shall  your  name  and  your  seed  be 
everlasting. 

"  And  they  shall  go  forth  and  look  upon  the 
carcasses  of  the  men  who  have  rebelled  against  me, 
for  the  gibbeted  shall  not  die  neither  shall  the 
guilty  be  annihilated,  and  they  shall  be  an  abhor- 
rence unto  all  flesh." 

Unable  to  translate  their  hopes  into  concrete 
deeds,  tliey  took  out  their  gratification  in  this 
gloating  dream.  Our  di'eams,  especially  our 
dreams  of  strife,  are  infinitely  more  savage  and 
cruel  than  our  sober  waking  thoughts,  and  so  it 
sometimes  is  with  poets'  and  prophets'  dreams. 
Later  hands  have  been  busy  idealizing,  spiritualiz- 
ing the  prophecy.  As  it  has  failed  to  work  out 
in  its  original  literal,  material  sense,  a  spiritual 
meaning  has  been  read  into  it,  the  cruder  ex- 
pressions softened  down  to  suit  a  more  refined 
age.  The  atmosphere  of  the  abattoir  has  been 
purified  as  much  as  possible  before  introducing 
it  into  the  gilded,  incense-scented  cathedral.  The 
figure  of  a  worm  (thola)  that  could  not  die  was 
less  offensive  to  the  cultured  mind  than  the  men- 
tal picture  of  a  man  hanging  (thola)  from  a 
gibbet  shrieking  in  agony  and  cursing  the  power 
that  would  not  let  him  die. 

The  flaming  words   of  the  prophets   formed  a 


174.  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

fitting  text  for  the  Son  of  Man  appealing  to  the 
loyalty  of  his  followers  through  their  hopes  and 
their  fears.  Sincerely  believing  himself  to  be  the 
particular  person  divinely  selected  successfully  to 
bring  about  the  glorious  fulfilment  of  the  proph- 
ecy, the  triumph  of  the  chosen  people  above  the 
Goim,  he  vividly  pictured  to  them  the  dire  and 
fiery  consequences  which  Yahweh  and  he  would 
visit  upon  the  traitor  and  the  rebel.  His  ex- 
cellent parting  advice  has  been  crypticized  for 
later  political  reasons  beyond  recognition.  Who 
can  see  a  gleam  of  sanity  in  the  words  of  Mark 
9 :  49-50,  as  they  stand  in  the  text :  "  For  every 
one  shall  be  salted  with  fire.  Salt  is  good,  but 
if  the  salt  haA'e  lost  its  saltness,  wherewith  shall 
you  season  it?  Have  salt  in  yourselves,  and  have 
peace  with  one  another." 

What  connection  has  the  passage  as  it  stands 
with  the  previous  one.''  The  only  flash  of  ration- 
ality visible  is  the  apparent  fact  that  there  is 
some  cryptic  play  on  the  word  "  salt."  So,  look- 
ing up  the  equivalent  of  that  word  in  Semitic,  we 
find  it  to  be  malah,  a  homophone  for  malah, 
meaning  "  word,"  "  command,"  "  discourse," 
"  control,"  *'  order,"  "  discipline,"  and  malach, 
Avhich  means  "  king."  With  these  facts  in  mind 
we  may  read  the  passage  in  question  with  less 
strain  upon  our  rationality,  thus :  "  For  every 
one  shall  be  disciplined  through  fire.  The  king 
is  good,  but  if  the  king  have  lost  control,  how 
shall    ye    have    order.     Have    discipline    among 


THE  GEENNA  OF  FIRE  175 

yourselves,  and  have  peace  one  with  another."  ^ 
The  Luke  lit:  25  adds  the  monitory  words  be- 
fore which  a  crypticism  is  invariably  to  be  found, 
"  He  tluit  hath  ears  for  Shimcon  (hearing)  let 
him  understand  (Shimeon)" 

The  words  "  For  every  one  shall  be  disciplined 
through  fire  "  have  evident  reference  to  the  ahena, 
or  the  '■  seething  pots  "  which  we  read  of  in  Jere- 
miah 1 :  13,  that  were  to  be  used  as  a  stern  but 
necessary  disciplinary  measure  which  only  they 
need  fear  who  had  overstepped  the  order  and  com- 
mand of  the  king. 

As  is  easily  gleaned  from  the  Apocalypse 
(20:14)  the  linme,  or  "basin"  of  fire  was  the 
"  second  death  "  which  was  to  be  experienced  by 
all  except  the  Elect,  or  Chosen  People,  whose  name 
it  is  that  is  written  large  in  the  Book  of  its  Life  — 
that  is,  in  its  autobiography.  In  that  glorious 
chapter  descriptive  of  the  restored  kingdom  and 

1  This  recalls  the  oft-quoted  sentence  from  the  Matt.  5, 
"  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth."  The  expression  has  become 
so  familiar  to  us,  and  so  accustomed  are  we  to  regard  it  as 
embodying  the  very  wisdom  of  the  wisest,  that  no  one  has 
observed  its  utter  absurdity.  Who  would  ever  think  of 
using  salt  as  a  fertilizer?  Or,  who  ever  uses  salt  on  earth 
except  to  kill  vegetation?  Evidently,  therefore,  the  original 
words  must  have  contained  a  sensible  thought.  Delitzsch 
translates  the  sentence  into  Hebrew  thus,  You  :  salt  :  the- 
earth.  The  word  for  "you"  in  Aramaic  differs  but  slightly 
from  the  word  for  "  to-come."  The  Semitic  for  "  salt "  and 
for  "  king "  are  homophones.  The  original,  therefore,  evi- 
dently read :  "  The  king  of  the  earth  is  come,"  that  is  to 
say,  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Messiah  of  the 
prophets  is  come. 


176  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  new  physical  JerusaleiTi,  we  find  that  when 
Death  and  the  Grave  (TJmiiatos  and  Hades)  have 
disposed  of  all  the  enemies  of  the  Chosen  People, 
even  these  very  instruments  of  mortality,  and 
Mortality  itself,  are  to  be  destroyed  in  the  Second 
Death ;  and  Mortality  having  "  died,"  all  that 
survives,  it  naturally  follows,  is  Immortality, 
which  is  the  everlasting  portion  of  the  Chosen 
People  resurrected,  who  shall  reign  forever  and 
forever  on  this  earth  made  glorious  for  Yahweh's 
own ;  while  the  Gentiles,  the  Goim,  having  failed  to 
arise,  pass  into  the  dreamless  oblivion  of  the 
Second  Death,  the  boundless,  shoreless  ocean  of 
Lethe. 


XXIV 
WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS 

"  Truth  gains  more  even  by  the  errors  of  one,  who,  with 
due  study  and  preparation,  thinks  for  himself,  than  by  the 
true  opinions  of  those  who  only  hold  them  because  they  do 
not  suifer  themselves  to  think." — Johk  Stuaht  Mill. 

The  Apokalupsis,  or  Apocalypse,  also  rend- 
ered "  Revelation,"  might  better  be  translated 
"  The  Exposure,"  for  that  is  what  it  is  in  very 
fact.  The  common  belief  that  it  was  not  merely 
a  revelation,  but  a  series  of  revelations,  or  prophe- 
cies, has  no  logical  or  philological  justification, 
for  the  title  to  the  last  book  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  in  the  singular  form  and  not  the  plural, 
indicating  that  it  has  to  do  with  a  single  fact. 

Like  the  Hebrew  equivalent,  Ghorah,  the  root 
meaning  is  "  to  be  naked,"  to  be  uncovered,  or 
exposed.  The  question  arises,  what  is  the  ex- 
posure Avhich  the  work  contains.? 

No  one  who  has  read  the  book  has  failed  to 
notice  the  violence  most  of  it  imposes  upon  the 
imagination  of  the  reader.  Many  of  its  proposi- 
tions are  utterly  impossible  of  pictorial  represen- 
tation. Indeed,  to  attempt  to  visualize  its  state- 
ments in  their  literal  sense  is  to  subject  one's 
sanity   to    undue   strain.     The   mental   wrecks   it 

177 


178  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

has  produced  strew  the  distant  shores  of  time. 
But,  far  from  being  a  farrago  of  nonsense,  as 
some  regard  the  book,  when  properly  understood 
it  is  an  illuminating  document,  a  true  revelation 
if,  indeed,  in  a  sense  altogether  different  from  that 
which  it  is  generally  piously  interpreted. 

It  is  commonly  believed  to  be  a  cryptic  scrip- 
ture, but  its  real  crypticism  covers  plain  state- 
ments of  consummated  fact,  not  wild-eyed  dreams 
and  prophecies  of  fusty  fanatics. 

The  incongruity  of  many  scarcely  connected 
phrases  is  produced  by  the  writer's  aim  to  join 
a  number  of  cryptic  words  into  phrases  and  sen- 
tences, without  too  much  regard  for  the  literal 
meanings  of  the  associated  words.  There  is  a 
certain  analogy  between  the  Apocalyptic  method 
and  that  employed  by  some  writers  on  mnemonics 
in  producing  phrases  coined  for  the  purpose  of 
aiding  the  mind  in  remembering  numbers.  For 
instance,  the  ratio  of  the  circumference  of  a  circle 
to  its  diameter,  worked  out  to  708  decimal  places, 
is  expressed  in  the  Loisette  s^'^stem  by  a  series  of 
phrases  in  which  each  consonant  represents  a 
numeral.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  in  such  a 
mnemonical  phrase  logic  is  sacrificed  to  the  pur- 
pose to  be  attained,  namely,  fixing  in  the  mind  the 
numerical  value  of  Pi. 

The  principal  purpose  of  the  Apocalypse  ap- 
pears to  be  to  reveal  or  to  make  an  exposure  of 
the  real  name  of  "  the  lesous  "  of  the  Gospels,  as 
"  lesous  "  preceded  by  the  article  is  not  a  name 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      179 

but  a  title  of  honor,  "  The  Liberator."  This  pur- 
pose the  Apocalypse  succeeds  in  accomplishing 
almost  ad  nauseam,  culminating  in  the  thirteenth 
chapter  where  the  "  hidden  name  "  is  given  in  its 
entirety  in  the  cryptic  number  QQQ. 

In  order  to  find  the  "  hidden  name  "  it  is  neces- 
sary to  turn  the  Greek  word  or  phrase  back  into 
its  Semitic  original, —  into  the  language  of  the 
person  who  wrote  that  portion  of  this  confessedly 
cryptic  book.  These  cryptic  expressions  gener- 
ally form  homophones  of  the  "  hidden  name." 
In  searching  out  these  homophones  we  must  keep 
in  mind  the  pronunciation  in  vogue  in  Palestine 
at  the  time  the  Apocalypse  was  written.  The 
Greek  Gamma  before  Epsilon  or  Iota,  the  g  before 
e  or  i,  was,  as  it  is  in  Modern  Greek,  either  like 
the  English  y,  or  not  pronounced  at  all.  Some- 
times it  is  stopped  just  short  of  full  silencing, 
permitting  a  slight  aspiration  to  be  heard.  In 
other  words,  the  g  underwent  a  process  similar  to 
that  known  as  "  aspiration  "  in  Gaelic  grammar. 

The  h  was  pronounced  by  the  Semites  as  by  the 
Celts,  with  the  lips  scarcely  touching,  the  Hebrew 
h  undotted  is  even  now  pronounced  like  our  w,  like 
the  second  letter  in  the  Russian  alphabet.  One 
can  readily  see  that,  when  immediately  followed 
by  a  short  o,  both  sounds  tended  to  coalesce  into  a 
long  o,  or  Omega.  The  Greek  a  is  frequently 
found  as  a  transliteration  of  the  Semitic  Kamets, 
although  the  Kamets  is  nearer  the  short  o  in 
English,    as    we    sound    it    in    the    English    word 


180  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

"  fond."  Charles  Rufus  Brown,  in  his  "  Aramaic 
Method,"  (Part  1,  page  72)  says:  "It  must 
be  remembered  that  in  Aramaic  a  mixed  syllable 
may  have  a  long  vowel ;  that  tone-long  vowels  and 
those  naturally  long  are  used  interchangeably, 
and  that  short  vowels  may  be  used  for  the  cor- 
responding long  ones  and  the  reverse.  .  .  .  The 
vowels  Hireq  (i)  and  Tsere  {e  in  "  fete ")  are 
freely  interchanged  and  less  frequently  other 
vowels  also;  e.  g. :  Holem  (o)  and  Shureq  (m  or 
oo):' 

Twice  in  Revelation  we  find  the  phrase  "  Son 
of  Man,"  which  is  but  a  literal  translation  of  Bar 
Gibhora,  or  "  Bar  Gi'ora."  There  is  hardly  a 
verse  in  the  first  thirteen  chapters  that  does  not 
contain  a  homophone  of  that  name.  Generally 
speaking,  little  attempt  appears  to  have  been 
made  to  make  sense  or  to  produce  continuity  of 
thought  if  only  that  homophone  can  be  wrung  into 
the  sentence.  The  very  frequency  of  this  occur- 
rence removes  the  element  of  accident.  Several 
of  these  words  are  almost  interminably  repeated 
and  generally  where  it  is  difficult  to  discover  any 
reasonable  literal  meaning  in  the  verse. 

Among  the  repeated  words,  the  phrase  "  he  that 
overcometh  "  will  be  recalled.  "  Overcome  "  is  in 
Semitic  ghhr.  Sometimes  we  find  two  homophones 
in  the  same  sentence,  as  in  Rev,  2 :  26 :  "  He  that 
overcometh  [^ghhr^  and  keepeth  my  works  unto 
the  end,  to  him  will  I  give  power  [^Gihhora^  over 
the  nations." 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      181 

"Worthy  [amona  (aomona,  'a  carpenter'  in 
Syriac)]  is  the  lamb  [Tola]  that  was  slain  to  re- 
ceive power  [Gihhora]  and  riches  [Shemamni], 
and  wisdom  [Giboroth]  and  strength  [Gebarah] 
and  honor  [Ghibirah  — '  pride ']  and  glory 
[ha  orah]  and  blessing  [ha  borach]  "  5 :  12. 

"  And  every  creature  [bor]  which  is  in  heaven 
[ShiiTMin]  and  in  the  earth  [b-orah]  and  under 
the  earth  [orah]  ...  I  heard  [Shemaai],  say- 
ing, Blessing  [borach]  and  honor  [ghibirah]  and 
glory  [orah],  and  power  [GibJiora]  be  unto  him 
that  sitteth  upon  the  throne  [thronos  in  Syriac; 
Heb.  Th-ron,  overcome]  and  unto  the  lamb 
[Tola]  for  ever  and  ever  "  5:  13. 

"  And  I  heard,  as  it  were,  a  noise  of 
thunder  [Roma]  one  of  the  four  beasts  say- 
ing, Come,  See !  [Bo,  rah]  and  I  saw  [tora]  and 
behold  [ora]  a  white  [ioraqh — 'pale']  horse 
.  .  .  and  he  went  forth  [ghebor]  conquer- 
ing and  to  conquer  [Gibora,  giborah]  "  6: 
1,2. 

"  And  the  kings  of  the  earth  [orah]  and  the 
great  men  [Gibori  giboroth]  and  the  chief 
[gibor]  captains  and  the  mighty  men  [gibori 
giboroth]  and  every  bondman  and  every  freeman 
[Bar  hora]  hid  them  in  the  dens  [/tor]  and  in  the 
rocks  [sMr]  of  the  mountains  [horijn]  and  said 
to  the  mountains  and  rocks  fall  [iorad]  upon  us 
and  hide  us  .  .  .  from  the  wrath  [ghebrah]  of 
the  lamb  [Tola]  and  the  great  day  of  liis  wrath 
[ghebrah]   which  is  to  come   [ghebor]    and  who 


182  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

shall  be  able  ['  have  power,'  Gibhora^  to  stand?  " 
6:15-17. 

"  And  I  stood  upon  the  sand  by  the  sea  and 
saw  [iora]  a  beast  [bor]  rise  up  \^ghorah^  out  of 
the  sea  having  seven  heads  \^reshim,  or  conso- 
nants] and  ten  horns  [keraia,  or  vowels]  and 
upon  his  horns  ten  diadems  [N azarot1i\  and  upon 
his  heads  his  name,  '  Blasphemy '  [Borach]  " 
13:1. 

"  And  I  saw  [iora]  one  of  the  heads  [the 
aspirated  h  in  Gibhora^  as  it  were,  wounded 
[liahorali]  to  death  [i.  e.,  silenced]  ;  and  his 
deadly  wound  [liahorah^  was  healed  [i.  e.,  put  in 
health,  b'orahah]  and  all  the  world  [rab  orahl 
wondered  [Shamen^  after  the  [ahor  ha^  beast 
[bor]  and  worshipped  \_borach^  the  dragon 
l^Tolal  which  gave  power  \^Gibhora^  to  the  beast 
[&or]  and  they  worshipped  [^borach^  the  beast 
[/«a  bor^  saying:  who  is  like  [damah,  also 
'ruined,'  'silenced']  unto  the  beast?  who  has 
the  power  [Gibhora~\  to  make  war  with  him? 
And  there  was  given  him  a  mouth  speaking  great 
things  and  blasphemies  [borach^  and  power 
[Gi&Aora]  was  given  him  to  continue  forty-two 
months  [iorahl  [the  three  and  one-half  years 
that  Bar  Gibhora  ruled  in  Jerusalem  during  the 
siege  of  Vespasian  and  Titus].  And  he  opened 
his  mouth  in  blasphemy  [^boracJi^  against  God. 
'  To  Blaspheme '  [Borach^  was  his  name 
[Shemo]  "  13:3-6. 

"  And  power  [^Gibhora^  was  given  him  to  make 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      183 

war  with  the  Saints  [or  with  Kadesh,  as  Simon 
Bar  Gibhora  did]  and  to  overcome  [ghebor] 
them;  and  power  [Gibho7-a']  was  given  him  over 
all  kindreds  and  tongues  and  nations."  (Com- 
pare the  Greek  text  here  with  the  Septuagint  of 
Daniel  7:14,  a  "  prophecy  "  concerning  the  Son 
of  Man.)  "And  all  that  dwell  upon  the  earth 
[b  oraWl  shall  worship  liborach'\  him,  even  those 
whose  names  ai*e  not  written  in  the  Book  of  the 
Life  of  the  Lamb  [Tola]  slain  by  means  of  a 
cast  down  into  a  chasm.  If  any  man  [Gibhora 
—  the  Greek  has  tis,  but  the  Syriac,  enosh,  the 
equivalent  of  Gibhora]  have  an  ear  let  him  hear 
[the  usual  warning  to  look  out  for  crypticism]. 
He  that  leadeth  into  captivity  [Nasarothl  shall 
go  [Ghebor]  into  captivity  [Nasaroth].  Here 
is  the  hope  of  the  Saints  [or  Kadeshim,  or 
Kadeshians]  "  13:7-10. 

"  And  I  beheld  [iora]  another  beast  [bor]  com- 
ing out  [ghebor]  of  the  earth  [orali]  and  he  had 
two  horns  [vowels]  like  a  lamb  [tola],  and  he 
spoke  like  [or,  '  it  was  pronounced  like ']  a 
dragon  [^oZa]  and  he  exercised  all  the  power 
[Gihhora]  of  the  first  beast  before  him  and 
causeth  the  earth  [ha  orah^  and  them  which 
dwell  therein  to  worship  [borach]  the  first  beast 
[bor  ahad]  whose  deadly  wound  [haborah]  was 
healed  [b  orakah]  and  he  doeth  great  wonders 
[Semeion]  so  that  he  maketh  fire  [&'or]  come 
down  from  [ghebor]  heaven  [Shimain]  on  the 
earth    [b    orali']    in    the    sight    [b   roah]    of   men 


184  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

[Gibhora'\  and  deceived  them  that  dwell  [^goraJi] 
on  the  earth  [ora/i]  by  these  miracles  [^Semeion^ 
which  he  had  power  [Gib/iora]  to  do  in  the  sight 
[6a  roah^  of  the  beast  [6or],  saying  to  them 
that  dwell  [gorah~\  on  the  earth  [b  orah^  that 
they  should  make  [fcora]  an  image  \^Natzar, 
form]  of  the  beast  \^bor^  which  hath  the  wound 
[haborah^  by  the  sword  [/m  boraqhl  and  did 
live.  And  he  had  power  [grib/iora]  to  give  life 
[make  breathe  —  bora  roah~\  to  the  image  \^Nat- 
zarl  of  the  beast  [^ha  bor^  and  that  the  image 
\_Natzar'\  of  the  beast  [ha  borl  should  both  speak 
and  cause  those  who  worship  [borach^  not  the 
image  [^Natzar^  of  the  beast  [/la  bor^  to  be  killed 
Ib^or,  to  destroy].  And  he  causeth  all,  both 
small  [gora]  and  great  [gibor],  rich  [Shimona'\ 
and  poor  [ioras]  free  [Bar  hora^  and  bond  to 
receive  a  mark  [1iaborah~\  in  their  right  hand 
[^iad  iameyi^  or  in  their  foreheads ;  and  that  no 
man  \^Gibhora^  might  buy  or  sell  save  he  had  a 
mark  [haborahl  or  the  name  [Shem^  of  the  beast 
[/la  bor^  or  the  number  \^Manah'\  of  his  name 
l^Shem'].  Here  is  wisdom  [Giborothl.  Let  him 
that  hath  understanding  [Shimeoni  calculate  the 
number  of  the  beast  [ha  bor^  for  it  is  the  number 
\Manah^  of  a  man  [^Gibhora^  and  his  number  is 
666.      [Simeona  Bara  Gibhora]  "  13: 11-18. 

THE  NAME  OF  THE  CREATURE 

Thus  we  have  seen,  after  an  interminable  play 
upon    the    name    (in    Aramaic),   which   seems   to 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      185 

make  almost  arrant  nonsense  in  the  Greek,  we  are 
brought  up  to  the  climax  of  the  book,  the  one 
verse  for  which  all  the  rest  of  the  book  was  writ- 
ten. VV^e  are  given  the  cryptic  warning,  "  Here 
is  Wisdom!  [Gibhorah,  in  Micah  3:8;  Giboroth 
in  Daniel  2:  23].  Let  him  that  hath  understand- 
ing \^Shim£on^  calculate  the  number  of  the  Beast: 
for  it  is  the  number  of  a  man  [Gibhora'\  and  the 
number  is  666." 

This  number  is  realized  in  the  name  of  the  "  Son 
of  Man  "  in  Aramaic,  "  Simeona  Bara  Gibhora," 
the  sum  total  of  the  customary  numerical  values 
of  the  Greek  letters  of  the  name  being  666,  as 


any  one  can  see:^ 

S 

200 

i 

10 

m 

40 

e 

5 

o 

TO 

n 

50 

a 

1 

B 

S 

a 

1 

r 

100 

a 

1 

1  Numerical  values  of  the 

Greek  letters: 

a  =      1           z  =      7         m 

= 

40          r  =  100 

ps  =  700 

b  =     2        ee  =     8          n 

z= 

50           s  =  200 

OO  =  800 

g=     3        th=      9          X 

z= 

60           t  =  300 

smpi  =  900 

d=     4           i=    10          o 

= 

70          u  =  400 

e=     5          k=   20         p 

= 

80        ph  =  500 

st=      6           1=    30          q 

= 

90        ch  =  600 

186  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 


Gr 

3 

i 

10 

b(h) 

2 

o 

70 

r 

100 

a 

1 

666 


In  these  seventeen  letters,  if  we  consider  the  as- 
pirated bh  in  Gibhora  as  a  vowel  —  as  it  is  at 
least  a  semi-vowel, —  we  have  seven  consonants 
and  ten  vowels.  The  seven  "heads"  (reshim) 
are  seven  consonants,  that  is,  "  characters  " 
(  reshim  is  Aramaic  for  both  "  heads  "  and  "  char- 
acters ")  because  the  "  characters  "  in  Semitic 
are  consonants.  The  "  ten  horns  "  (kernta) 
were  the  vowels  (kereiai)  dots,  or  points. 
"  Kereiai,"  like  "  kerata,"  also  means  "  horns." 

One  of  the  "  heads,"  or  consonants  was 
"  wounded  "  {hiborah)  to  death,  that  is,  silenced, 
but  "  its  deadly  w^ound  was  healed,"  that  is  put 
"in  health"  (b-orl-ah),  or  lengthened,  pro- 
longed —  all  of  which  meanings  belong  to  the 
word. 


THE  LAMB 

The  Son  of  Man  is  contemptuously  referred  to 
in  the  Talmud  as  "The  Hung"  (Tola).  It  is 
scarcely  to  be  doubted  that  this  same  term  was 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      187 

used  by  the  Jewish  author  of  the  Apocalypse. 
But  the  Christian  redactor  had  the  wit  to  turn 
the  term  to  good  advantage.  He  kept  the  word 
"  Tula,'"  but  with  the  initial  dageshed  Tau 
changed  into  a  Tetli.  This  did  not  affect  the 
pronunciation  of  the  word,  but  it  certainly  did 
make  a  change  in  the  meaning,  by  converting  the 
"  Hung "  into  a  "  young  lamb,"  which  is  the 
exact  translation  of  the  Greek  word  arnion,  the 
term  used  in  the  Apocalypse. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  the  Gospel  accord- 
ins  to  the  John,  1 :  36,  in  which  the  Son  of  Man 
is  called  a  "  lamb,"  the  Greek  word  in  this  text  is 
amnos  (lamb)  not  arnion  (young  lamb). 

It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  it  is  not  the 
amnos  or  "  lamb,"  that  is  mentioned  in  Leviticus 
16 :  8,  but  the  chimaros,^  or  "  goat,"  which  was 

1  The  bodies  of  the  chimaros  and  the  moschos,  or  bullock 
(according  to  the  Septuagint  version  of  Lev.  16:27)  whose 
blood  vt^as  brought  in  to  make  atonement  in  the  Holy  Place 
as  a  sin  offering,  "to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world," 
were  carried  "  forth  without  the  camp "  and  burned.  It 
is  this  passage  in  Leviticus  to  which  the  writer  of  Heb. 
13:11-13,  refers,  from  which  he  draws  the  similitude, 
"Wherefore  Jesus  also  that  he  might  sanctify  the  people 
through  his  own  blood,  suffered  without  the  gate."  The 
expression  "without  the  gate"  bears  evidence  of  being  an 
early  alteration  of  the  text.  Evidently,  as  in  the  preceding 
and  the  succeeding  verses  the  words  in  the  twelfth  verse 
were  also  originally,  "without  the  camp,"  for  in  verses  13 
and  14  he  says,  "  Let  us  go  forth  unto  him  without  the 
camp,  bearing  his  humiliation;  for  here  no  city  is  left 
standing,  but  we  seek  one  to  come." 

The  camp,  to  the  writer  of  Leviticus,  and  which  had  no 
gate,  constituted  the  huddled  tents  of  the  nomad  nation,  a 


188  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

selected  "  to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world." 
The  Semitic  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  who 
probably  read  his  Scriptures  in  the  LXX  version, 
equated  the  unusual  word  chimaros,  the  root  of 
which  is  chimar,  pronounced  "  himar,"  with  the 
Aramaic  h  imar,  "  the  lamb."  If  the  original  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel  was  Aramaic,  we  can  easily  see 
how  the  Greek  word  of  the  LXX  was  taken  over 
and  naturalized  into  Aramaic,  just  as  Greek 
words  such  as  thronos,  hegemon,  praxis,  echidna, 
stoa,  strateia,  schema,  lestes,  margarita,  etc.,  are 
adopted  into  the  Syriac  version  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Thus  we  have  amnos  in  the  Gospel  and 
arnion  in  the  Apocalypse,  because  amnos  is  the 
proper  equivalent  of  the  Aramaic  imar,  and 
arnion  correctly  translates  the  Semitic  tola,  each 
of  which  is  rendered  "  lamb  "  in  our  English  ver- 
sions of  the  New  Testament. 

The  Christian  editor  of  Revelation,  at  Rev. 
13:8,  refers  to  the  Tola  in  a  way  that  seems  to 
puzzle  translators.  The  common  version  renders 
the  passage,  "  the  lamb  slain  from  the  foundation 

good  distance  from  which,  because  of  the  odors,  no  doubt, 
the  bones  and  skins  and  excrements  of  the  sacrificial  ani- 
mals were  burned.  "  The  camp  "  is  used  by  the  writer  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  in  the  poetic  sense,  of  the 
Jewish  nation. 

Evidently  the  phrase  "  without,"  or  "  away  from  (exo)  " 
the  camp,  was  meant  by  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  desig- 
nate a  point  abroad,  beyond  the  camp  or  nation,  far  away 
from  the  City  not  "  left  standing "  and  among  a  people 
with  whom  that  writer,  acting  upon  his  own  proposal,  spent 
the  remnant  of  his  days. 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      189 

of  the  world"  (kataboles  kosmou).  The  evident 
lack  of  sense  in  such  translation  was  apparent 
to  the  revisers  of  the  new  English  Revised  Version, 
for  it  was  plain  to  them  that  the  Lamb  was  slain 
in  time,  at  a  very  definite  time  in  the  history  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  No  African  churchman  had 
arisen  as  yet  with  his  doctrine  of  foreordination 
when  the  Apocalypse  was  being  written.  To  en- 
deavor to  read  a  doctrine  into  the  text  that  had 
not  been  made  at  that  stage  of  the  evolution  of 
dogma,  is  plainly  a  liistorical  mistake.  The  Re- 
visers sought  to  get  around  the  difficult}'  by  adopt- 
ing a  different  order  of  the  words  of  the  text. 
In  the  Revised  Version,  therefore,  the  whole  verse 
reads : 

"  And  all  that  dwell  on  the  earth  shall  worship  him, 
every  one  whose  name  hath  not  been  written  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world  in  the  book  of  life  of  the 
Lamb  that  hath  been  slain." 

This  arrangement  gets  on  no  further.  Indeed, 
it  only  goes  deeper  into  the  dogma  of  Predestina- 
tion. All  we  can  learn  from  the  new  version  is 
the  fact  that  it  was  apparent  to  the  minds  of  the 
revisers  there  was  something  wrong  with  the  text. 

It  appears  not  to  have  occurred  to  them  that 
kataboles  is  not  the  usual  Greek  word  for  "  found- 
ation." Themalion  is  the  term  used  by  Homer, 
Hesiod,  Pindar,  Xenophon,  Thucydides.  There 
appears  to  be  very  little  classical  authority  for 
the  use  of  kataboles  in  the  sense  of  "  foundation." 


190  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  New  Testament  word  comes  from  the  verb 
hatahallehi,  "  to  cast  down."  The  corresponding 
word  in  the  Syriac  text  has  the  same  meaning 
(thramitha,  from  rama,  "  He  cast  down  ").  The 
idea  of  "  foundation  "  is  only  read  into  the  word. 
The  Greek  word  Icosmou  in  the  text  is,  appar- 
ently, a  "  correction,"  for  chosmou,  or  chasmou,  a 
form  found  also  in  Hippocrates ;  in  other  words, 
a  "  yawning  abyss."  The  original  meaning, 
therefore,  appears  to  be  that  the  Tola  was  "  slain 
by  being  cast  down  into  a  chasm,"  evidently  a 
reference  to  the  fact  that  he  was  hurled  from  the 
Tarpeian  Rock. 

THE  FAITHFUL  WITNESS 

Rev.  2:13,  reads,  "  In  those  da^'s  when  Antipas, 
my  Faithful  Witness,  who  was  slain  among  you 
where  Satan  dwelleth."  The  average  patriotic 
Jew,  who  had  passed  through  the  unspeakable 
horrors  of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  was  firmly  con- 
vinced that  Satan's  home  address  was  the  City  of 
Rome,  and  not  an  innocuous  Pergamus,  for  it  is 
onl}"^  at  Rome  he  could  conceive  of  "  Satan's 
throne  "  to  have  been  set  up.  At  this  point,  too, 
there  appear  to  be  various  readings  of  the  texts. 
The  Syriac  even  omits  the  name  "  Antipas."  In- 
deed, the  expositors  have  been  put  to  their  wits' 
ends  to  identify  this  same  Antipas.  He  has  been 
as  great  a  puzzle  to  them  as  Alexander  and  Rufus. 
There  is  no  other  record  of  an}^  Christian  martyr 
named     Antipas.     That     any     Christian     father 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      191 

should  inflict  upon  his  defenceless  offspring,  or 
that  a  convert  should  retain  the  name  of  the 
abominated  Herod  Antipas,  accused  in  the  Gos- 
pels of  the  murder  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  ac- 
cording to  Luke  13:32,  designated  by  the  Son 
of  Man  as  "  that  fox,"  appears  a  moral  impos- 
sibility. As  the  Syriac  text  omits  the  name  An- 
tipas but  inserts  in  its  place  a  word  meaning 
"  faithlessness,"  it  is  probable  that  the  original 
Greek  text  contained  the  word  apistia,  or  anti- 
pistia,  instead  of  Antipas.  Moreover,  Rev.  1 :  5, 
shows  that  the  Faithful  Witness,  was  not  Antipas 
but  the  Jesus,  "  who  is  the  Faithful  Witness,  the 
first-born  of  the  dead." 

Reference  to  the  "  Faithful  Witness  "  occurs 
in  several  places  in  Revelation,  a  reflection  from 
the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms,  the  Martys  Pistos 
of  the  Septuagint,  the  Amen  and  the  Ameth  of  the 
Hebrew  text. 

Psalm  89 :  37  et  seq.  refers  to  him  as  "  the  moon 
(iorah)  perfect  forever  and  the  Faithful  Witness 
in  Heaven.  Thou  hast  banished  and  scoffed  at 
and  cast  off  thy  Anointed  .  .  .  and  his  throne 
thou  hast  dashed  against  the  ground."  The 
Septuagint  gives  for  "  Anointed  "  the  word  chris- 
tos,  which  the  Vulgate  renders  Christus,  with  a 
capital  "  C,"  though  the  Douay,  like  the  King 
James  version,  translates  the  word  "  Anointed." 
It  would,  therefore,  appear  that  a  term  so  restric- 
tive in  its  application  as  "  Faithful  Witness " 
would  no  more  be  applied  to  some  unknown  no- 


192  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

body,    such    as    this    hypothetical   Antipas,    than 
would    its    alternative   expression,    "  the    Christ." 

In  Rev.  3:14,  we  have  the  Hebrew  term  used 
in  the  Greek  text :  "  These  things  saith  the 
Amen,  the  Faithful  and  True  Witness."  The 
word  Amen,  with  its  variant,  Ameth,  is  used  in 
Hebrew  for  "  truth,"  as  well  as  for  "  faithful," 
and  no  doubt  it  is  with  the  prophetic  meaning  in 
mind  the  Son  of  Man  so  frequently  applied  the 
term  to  himself.  In  John  18:37,  we  find  both 
"  truth  "  and  "  witness  "  used  in  conjunction. 
The  Son  of  Man  is  quoted  as  saying,  "  and  for 
this  cause  came  I  into  the  world:  that  I  should 
bear  witness  unto  the  Truth.  Every  one  that  is 
of  the  Truth  [AmeTi]  heareth  my  voice.  The 
Praelatus  saith  unto  him,  '  What  is  the  Truth '  " 
(or,  "  Who  is  the  Amen?  ") 

The  oft-repeated  expression  which  is  generally 
translated  "  Amen,  I  say  unto  you,"  will  bear  the 
construction  also,  "  I,  the  Amen,  say  unto  you." 
This  construction  is  certainly  justified  by  Rev. 
3:14,  quoted  above,  and  by  John  14:6,  "I  am 
the  Way  (orah),  the  Truth  (amen)  and  the  Life 
(roah)  "  The  variant  form,  Ameth,  was  perhaps 
the  word  which  one  of  the  writers  of  Revelation 
had  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote,  "  I  am  the  Alpha 
and  the  Omega,"  The  Syriac  version  reads  "  I 
am  the  Aliph  and  the  Tav,"  the  first  letter  and  the 
last  letter  of  the  word  AvaGth,  no  less  than  of  the 
Semitic  alphabet.  As  the  alphabet  spells  all 
words,  and  the  very  word  for  "word"  (dabar) 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      193 

means  also  a  "  thing,"  the  Aliph  and  the  Tau,  the 
very  essence  of  all  words  {debarim)y  were  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end,  the  very  substance  of  all 
things  (debarim). 

The  original  text  of  Rev.  2 :  13,  therefore,  most 
probably  read,  "  In  the  days  of  faitlilessness  my 
Faithful  Witness  was  slain  among  you  where  Sa- 
tan dwelleth,"  that  is,  of  course,  to  the  intensely 
patriotic  Jew,  no  other  place  on  earth  than  the 
City  of  Rome,  wherein  dwelt  the  adversary  {sa- 
tan)  of  the  Jews. 

Throughout  the  New  Testament  there  is  a 
cryptic  relationship  between  the  "  Faithful,"  or 
"True"  Witness  {ad  amen)  and  the  "right 
hand"  {iad  iamen).  To  this  day  in  our  courts 
the  right  hand  is  raised  in  taking  oath  as  a  guar- 
antee that  the  deponent  will  be  a  "  true  witness  " 
in  the  cause  on  trial,  and  that  he  will  tell  the 
truth  (amen)  the  whole  truth  (amen)  and  nothing 
but  the  truth  (amen).  The  form  amen  instead 
of  iamen  in  the  sense  of  right  hand,  is  found  in 
Isaiah  30:  21,  "  when  ye  turn  to  the  right  hand." 
The  Hebrew  word  amen  fulfilled  the  double  func- 
tion of  our  English  word,  "  right." 

THE  PLACE  OF  HIS  DEATH 

The  place  of  the  death  of  the  Son  of  Man  is 
told  in  Rev.  11:8: 

"  And  their  dead  bodies  shall  lie  upon  the  street 
of  the  great  city  spiritually  called  Sodom  and  Egypt, 
where  also  Our  Lord  was  crucified." 


194  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

The  traditional  place  where  "  our  Lord  was 
crucified  "  is  not  in  the  streets  of  the  city  of  Jeru- 
salem, but  outside  the  walls  of  the  city.  Surely 
the  Holy  City  would  not  be  called  a  Sodom  by  a 
fanatically  patriotic  Jew,  nor  would  he  call  the 
city  that,  to  him,  was  the  center  of  enlightenment, 
by  the  name  of  Egypt,  which  was  to  the  Jew  a 
synonym  for  darkness  dire. 

It  was  the  custom  of  the  Romans,  when  they 
executed  a  person  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Forum, 
to  expose  his  body  upon  the  stairs  —  the  Scalae 
Gemoniae  —  in  order  to  throw  terror  into  all 
persons  criminally  inclined,  and  thus  to  restrain 
them  from  following  in  the  way  of  the  transgressor 
of  the  Roman  law. 

That  the  executions  referred  to  in  the  text  just 
quoted  took  place  at  some  festal  occasion,  at  a 
time  when  the  citizenry  of  Rome  were  rejoicing 
over  the  triumph  of  the  Roman  arms  and  the  de- 
struction of  the  enemies  of  the  nation,  may  be 
further  inferred  from  the  text.  Rev,  11 :  10,  "  And 
they  that  dwell  upon  the  land  shall  rejoice  over 
them  and  make  merry  and  send  gifts  one  to  an- 
other." 

Here  we  also  find  another  version  of  the  Ascen- 
sion which  places  the  scene  of  the  drama  in  Rome: 

"  After  three  days  and  a  half  the  Spirit  of  Life 
from  God  entered  into  them  and  they  stood  upon 
their  feet;  and  great  fear  fell  upon  all  that  saw  them. 
And  they  heard  a  great  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      195 

them,  '  Come  up  hither.'  And  they  ascended  up  to 
heaven  in  a  cloud;  and  their  enemies  beheld  them. 
And  the  same  hour  there  was  a  great  earthquake  and 
in  the  earthquake  were  slain  of  men  seven  thousand; 
and  the  remnant  were  affrighted  and  gave  glory  to 
the  God  of  heaven." 

This  mention  of  the  earthquake  at  the  "  resur- 
rection "  of  the  Son  of  Man  is,  perhaps,  based 
upon  Matt.  27:  51. 

It  is  well  known,  of  course,  that  the  story  of  the 
Ascension  appears  in  the  Gospels  only  in  Mark 
and  Luke.  The  Markian  text  is  a  late  addition. 
This  account  does  not  state  where  the  ascension 
occurred.  Luke  says  it  was  in  Bethany  on  Easter 
Sunday.  The  writer  of  the  Acts  locates  it  at  the 
Mount  of  Olives  forty  days  later.  The  point  of 
interest  in  the  account  in  Revelation  is  entirely 
geographical:  the  Son  of  Man,  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora, 
was  executed  at  Rome. 

That  one  of  the  writers  of  Revelation  was  con- 
scious of  the  change  from  the  name.  Bar  Gi'ora, 
to  the  appellation,  "  Jesus,"  is  apparent  in  Rev. 
2:17,  and  3:12,  where  reference  is  made  to  a 
"  new  Name."  This  name  was  produced  by  drop- 
ping the  article  before  the  title  "  lesous,"  and  by 
the  integration  of  the  title  into  a  name.  The 
translation  of  Bar  Gi'ora  into  Huios  Anthropou, 
Son  of  Man,  had  passed  the  real  name  into  ob- 
livion, and  the  omission  of  the  article  before  the 
title  lesous,  in  the  Epistles   and  the  other  later 


196  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

writings  such  as  the  birth  stories,  left  the  greatest 
of  all  the  children  of  Israel,  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora, 
utterly  unrecognizable  under  his  "  new  name." 

IDENTIFICATION  OF  THE  BEAST 

The  uncritical  who  see  in  the  Bible  from  Genesis 
to  Revelation  a  continuity  characteristic  of  the 
work  of  a  single  Author,  have  confounded  the 
"  Beast,"  or  Therion,  of  Revelation  with  the  An- 
tichrist of  the  Epistles  ascribed  to  John,  although 
the  word  "  antichrist  "  does  not  once  occur  in  the 
Book  of  Revelation.  No  critic  worthy  of  serious 
consideration  today  thinks  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the 
Johannean  Epistles  and  the  Apocalypse  as  they 
stand  were  written  by  the  same  hand.  The  writer 
who  first  used  the  term  Therion,  or  "  little  crea- 
ture," or  "  beast,"  did  not  intend  to  be  uncom- 
plimentary. To  represent  even  the  Deity  as  an 
animal  was  not  considered  an  act  of  disrespect  by 
the  ancients.  The  ancient  Hebrews  worshipped 
Yahew  under  the  form  of  a  bull.  The  "  lamb  " 
is,  of  course,  a  beast,  and  in  Revelation  is  at  first 
identified  with  the  king  of  beasts,  the  lion,  "  the 
lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah."  This  lion,  of  Rev. 
5 :  5,  fades  into  a  lamb  in  the  very  next  verse,  a 
beast  with  seven  heads  {re shim, —  consonants) 
and  seven  eyes  (vowels,  means  of  verbal  identifi- 
cation), the  seven  vowels  and  the  seven  consonants 
in  the  Greek  spelling  of  the  name  Simeon  Bar 
Giora.  There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  the 
slurring    and    uncomplimentary    phrases    in    the 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      197 

thirteenth   chapter   are   interpolations   made  into 
the  original  text  of  that  chapter. 

To  the  original  writer  this  beast  was  the  very 
Son  of  Man  described  by  Daniel  7:14;  for  in  Rev. 
13 :  7,  we  find  the  exact  words  of  Daniel  glorify- 
ing the  Son  of  Man  as  lifted  out  of  the  LXX 
and  placed  in  the  Book  of  Revelation :  "  And 
power  was  given  him  over  all  kindreds  and  tongues 
and  nations." 

Thus  we  see  the  Beast  of  Revelation  described 
by  the  identical  words  that  are  used  by  Daniel 
after  he  "  saw  in  the  night  visions  .  .  .  one  like 
unto  the  Son  of  Man,  and  he  came  with  the  An- 
cient of  Days,"  "  whose  dominion  is  an  everlasting 
dominion  which  shall  not  pass  away." 

The  first  chapter  of  Revelation  appears  to  give 
a  description  of  the  personal  appearance  of  Si- 
meon Bar  Gi'ora  as  he  passed  along  in  the  triumph 
of  Titus.  "  I  saw  the  golden  seven  [branch] 
candlestick,  and  in  the  midst  [or  vicinity]  of  the 
seven  [branch]  candlestick  one  like  to  Son-of-Man 
[Bar  Gi'ora]  clothed  in  a  garment  down  to  the 
foot  and  girt  about  the  breast  with  a  golden  gir- 
dle. His  head  and  his  hairs  were  white  like  wool 
[Bar  Gi'ora,  whitened  with  worry  and  years]  as 
white  as  snow,  but  his  eyes  were  as  a  flame  of 
fire.  .  .  .  And  he  had  in  his  right  hand  a  reed 
or  scepter  [shehef  not  the  '  seven  (sheba)  stars  '] 
and  from  his  side  [peak:  not  peh,  '  mouth  ']  pro- 
jected a  two-edged  sword,  and  his  face  was  like 
the  sun  shining  in  its  strength.     And  when  I  saw 


198  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

him  I  fell  at  his  feet,  and  he  laid  his  right  hand 
upon  me,  saying  unto  me.  .  .  .  '  I  am  the  first 
[king  of  the  New  Jerusalem]  and  the  last ;  I  am 
the  living  and  the  dead ;  but,  mark  you,  I  shall  live 
throughout  the  ages  ! '  " 

Who  shall  gainsay  this  prophecy? 

A  BOOK  OF  MANY  AUTHORS 

The  Apocalypse,  that  strange  jumble  of  Chris- 
tianity and  Antichristianity,  was,  in  its  original 
form,  more  a  political  pamphlet  than  a  religious 
tract.  The  original  document  was  written  by  a 
Jew  in  whose  sorrowing  heart  burned  all  the 
hatred  of  his  race  for  the  desolators  of  their  Holy 
City,  the  ruthless  destroyers  of  the  Jewish  state. 
The  Avish  that  is  father  to  the  thought,  prayer- 
fully contemplates  the  wreck  and  ruin  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  In  the  mind  of  the  patriotic 
writer  no  punishment  is  too  great  and  no  con- 
demnation however  cruel  can  gratify  the  unquench- 
able thirst  for  revenge  which  possessed  the  soul 
of  the  writer  of  the  original  document.  The  sec- 
ond author  is  likewise  intensely  bitter  against  the 
early  Judeo-Christians.  While  the  book  was 
written,  perhaps,  before  the  name  Christian  origi- 
nated, it  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  whom  he  at- 
tacks as  blasphemers  when  he  declares  they  "  say 
they  are  Jews,  and  are  not,  but  are  of  the  syna- 
gogue of  Satan,"  that  is,  of  the  adversary,  the 
Romanized-Greek-speaking  Jew   (Rev.  2:9). 

The  second  writer  had  the  same  class  of  persons 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      199 

in  mind,  no  doubt,  of  whom  he  has  just  written 
(Rev.  2:2),  "I  know  .  .  .  how  thou  canst  not 
tolerate  them  who  are  evil;  and  thou  hast  tried 
them  who  say  they  are  Apostles  and  are  not,  and 
found  them  liars." 

Again  he  shudders  at  those  who  "  eat  things 
sacrificed  to  idols."  This  is  plainly  an  attack  on 
the  position  taken  in  I  Corinthians  10,  wherein 
the  writer  thereof  condones  an  act  so  offensive 
in  the  eyes  of  the  orthodox  Jew,  when  he  says  it 
is  not  wrong  to  eat  things  sacrificed  to  idols  un- 
less the  eating  scandalize  a  brother. 

In  Rev.  13 :  10,  the  attack  is  followed  up.  Here 
there  is  a  seeming  reply  to  Ephesians  4 :  8,  that 
the  Son  of  Man  "  led  captivity  captive,"  in  the 
text  which  says,  "  He  that  leadeth  into  captivity 
shall  be  led  into  captivity."  The  point  of  the 
rejoinder  is  more  apparent  in  the  Greek,  but  may 
be  brought  out  better  in  English  by  slightly  alter- 
ing the  order  of  the  words :  "  He  led  captive 
captivity ;  "  and  "  He  that  leads  captive  shall  be 
led  captive." 

We  have  in  Revelation  the  starting  point  of 
Talmudical  polemics.  In  Rev.  2: 14,  we  read,  "  I 
have  a  few  things  against  thee  because  thou  hast 
there  them  that  hold  the  doctrine  of  Balaam  who 
taught  Balek  to  cast  a  stumbling  block  before  the 
Children  of  Israel." 

The  Talmud  refers  to  the  Son  of  Man  as 
"  Balaam."  As  in  Numbers  31 :  16,  Balaam  is  said 
to  have  advised  Balak,  king  of  the  INIoabites,  how 


200  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

to  seduce  the  Israelites  from  worshipping  Yahweh, 
so  the  Talmud  applies  the  name  of  the  ancient 
Midianite  prophet,  Balaam  Ben  Beor  [or,  "  Bar 
'eor  "]  to  the  Son  of  Man,  accusing  him  also  of 
seducing  the  Jewish  people  from  their  ancient 
faith.  "  Balaam,"  or  more  correctly  "  Bil'am," 
is  derived  from  Bila  Am,  Destroyer  of  the  Peo- 
ple," a  name  likewise  given  in  the  Talmud  to  the 
Son  of  Man.  It  is  also  of  the  same  meaning  as  the 
Abaddon  and  the  Apollyon  of  the  Apocalypse. 
The  word  "Balaam,"  or  "Bil'am,"  is  literally 
rendered  into  Greek  by  Niko  laites  from  Nikon, 
Gihhora,  and  laos,  people),  the  ver}^  word  found 
in  Rev.  2:  15,  and  rendered  Nicolaitanes  where  the 
writer  speaks  of  "  the  doctrine  of  the  Nicolaitanes, 
which  thing  I  hate,"  evidently  referring  to  primi- 
tive Christianity. 

It  is  a  strange  fortune  that  this  book  which  was 
written  by  a  Jew  with  the  purpose  of  covertly  or 
cryptically  attacking  the  Roman  empire,  and  ex- 
posing the  true  name  of  the  founder  of  Christian- 
ity, should  have  been  later  edited  by  a  Christian, 
re-edited  by  another  Jew,  again  by  Christians, 
and  subsequently  become  transformed  into  a  ca- 
nonical Christian  sacred  scripture,  one  of  the 
foundation  stones  of  the  Christian  faith.  The 
second  Jewish  writer  would  expose  the  real  name 
of  the  "  blasphemer,"  upon  whose  name  he  puns, 
who  is  the  founder  of  "  the  synagogue  of  Satan." 
"  Blasphemer  "  is  a  term  not  uncommonly  applied 
in  the  Talmud  to  the  same  individual. 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      201 

It  would  appear  that  the  chief  author  of  the 
Apocalypse  lived  too  near  the  epoch  which  wit- 
nessed the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  too  close  to  the 
men  who  fought  with  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  to  save 
the  Holy  City  from  its  unholy  doom  to  dare  utter 
a  word  openly  against  the  name  of  the  revered 
leader  of  the  great  revolt.  As  under  cover  of  the 
name  Babylon  he  vented  his  flaming  wrath  with 
impunity  against  the  Roman  Empire,  so  he 
courted  the  same  impunity  Avhen,  under  the  dis- 
guise of  crypticism,  he  attacked  the  national  hero 
whom  the  patriotism  of  his  people  had  apotheo- 
sized. 

CHIEF  AUTHOR  OF  THE  APOC/VLYPSE 

That  the  real  author  of  the  original  Apoca- 
lypse, as  tradition  asserts,  is  John,  one  of  the 
Boanerges,  or  rather,  Beniherges,  the  leader  who 
stood  with  the  Son  of  Man  in  defense  of  Jerusalem, 
it  would  not  be  prudent  to  dispute.  The  flaming 
hatred  of  everytliing  Roman  is  not  surprising  in 
one  who  suffered  so  intensely  from  Roman  severity. 
The  ideas  the  book  embodies  are  such  as  would  be 
expected  from  one  accustomed  to  the  sight  of 
human  blood  constantly  flowing  before  his  eyes. 
The  ardent  longing  for  reprisal,  the  hope  and 
despair  of  impotent  hate,  the  heart  hardened  at 
the  sight  of  suffering,  the  ears  deafened  to  the 
cries  and  shrieks  of  the  dying,  the  wounded  and 
the  starving  in  the  besieged  city,  a  sense  of  disgust 
from  the  smoke,  the  fetid  fumes  eternally  rising 


202  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

from  the  pit  in  the  Valley  of  Ben  Hinnom,  where 
decaying  cadavers  were  cremated  in  mountainous 
heaps  by  the  besiegers,  bodies  of  Jewish  soldiers, 
burning  to  ashes,  beyond  hope  of  participation 
in  the  Resurrection,  only  such  a  mind  could  con- 
ceive the  horrid  hell  of  flaming  fire,  the  suffocating 
lake  of  burning  brimstone  which  the  Apocalypse 
reveals. 

The  enmity  between  John  and  Simon  who  at 
first,  Josephus  says,  fought  each  other  for  pos- 
session of  the  city,  was  perhaps,  never  fully 
healed,  even  though  subsequently  they  joined 
hands  against  the  tyrant  Titus,  who  buried  their 
temple,  their  firesides  and  their  hopes  in  the  ashes 
of  the  Holy  Cit}'.  The  jealousy  that  rankled  in 
the  heart  of  the  old  warrior  against  his  martyred 
rival  could  hardly  have  failed  to  find  expression 
in  his  book. 

The  Apocalypse  purports  to  have  been  written 
by  John  on  the  "  island  the  so-called  Patmos." 
(Rev.  1:9.)  There  is  a  bleak  and  rocky  island 
of  that  name  indicated  on  the  modern  maps  of 
the  eastern  Mediterranean.  It  is  mentioned  by 
Plin}^  Strabo,  and  Thucydidcs.  From  an  inscrip- 
tion it  appears  that  the  island  was  anciently 
called  Patwos ;  and  as  today  it  is  called  by  the 
natives  Pati«o,  it  is  probable  it  was  never  called 
Patmos  outside  the  Apocalypse  and  manuscripts 
of  Thucydides,  Strabo  and  Pliny  corrected  in  ac- 
cordance therewith. 

John,   who   was    taken   by   Titus    to   Rome   to 


WHAT  REVELATION  REVEALS      203 

grace  his  triumph,  was  imprisoned  in  that  city, 
perhaps  in  the  rock3^-island-fortress  in  the  Tiber, 
opposite  the  present  Vecchio  Ghetto  and  the 
synagogue.  One  who  has  any  knowledge  of 
Semitic  vocahzation,  can  readily  see  how,  by  trans- 
lation and  re-translation  from  Greek  to  Aramaic 
and  back  again,  this  Island  of  the  River  {Po- 
tamos)  easily  became  the  Island  of  Potmos  or 
Patmos,  the  impossible  place  in  which  tradition 
has  declared  the  Apocalypse  was  written.  This 
view  is  corroborated  by  the  Syriac  text  of  the 
Apocalypse  which  gives  us  Potamon,  not  Patmos, 
and  Potamon  is  the  Greek  accusative  case  of 
Potamos,  a  river. 


XXV 

THE  EXPOSURE  OF  MIRACLE 
STORIES 

In  Revelation  6:6,  an  insight  is  given  into  the 
myth-making  process  which  was  very  apparent  to 
at  least  one  of  the  writers  of  that  book.  At  the 
opening  of  the  Third  Seal  one  of  the  Living  Be- 
ings is  quoted  as  uttering  the  cryptic  words : 

"  A  measure  of  wheat  for  a  denarios  and  three 
measures  of  barley  for  a  denarios,  and  the  oil  and 
the  wine  do  not  hurt." 

The  first  part  of  the  sentence  is  apparently  a 
quotation  from  memory,  with  some  conscious  vari- 
ations, of  II  Kings,  7:1: 

"  Tomorrow  about  this  time  shall  a  measure  of  fine 
flour  be  sold  for  a  shekel  and  two  measures  of  barley 
for  a  shekel  in  the  gate  of  Samaria." 

The  last  words  quoted  are  the  prophecy  of  El- 
Isha  (El  Isha  =  "  God  of  Liberation  ")  concern- 
ing the  end  of  the  siege  of  Samaria  wliich  was  laid 
by  the  king  of  Syria.  The  Roman  siege  of  Jeru- 
salem was,  if  we  accept  the  statements  of  this 
Book  of  Kings,  but  an  echo  of  the  horrors  of  the 
siege  of  the  Israelitish  capital.  To  such  extremi- 
ties were  the  inhabitants  driven  that  a  bargain  is 

said  to  have  been  made  between   certain  women 
204 


EXPOSURE  OF  MIRACLE  STORIES      205 

for  the  cooking-  of  their  own  children.-^  In  II 
Kings,  6 :  25,  we  read  "  And  there  was  a  great 
famine  in  Samaria ;  and,  behold,  they  besieged  it 
until  an  ass's  head  was  sold  for  four  score  pieces 
of  silver." 

The  ancient  prophet  in  the  words  quoted  from 
II  Kings  7:  1,  meant  to  hearten  the  starving  and 
despairing  in  the  besieged  city  of  Samaria.  Re- 
production of  the  woi'ds  of  the  Apocalypse  would 
appear  to  indicate  that  for  a  like  purpose  a  simi- 

1  The  scarcity  of  food  in  the  Holy  City  during  the  siege 
made  the  conservation  of  the  food  supply  an  absolute 
necessity,  and  piety  and  patriotism  made  a  virtue  of  this 
necessity.  The  man  who  would  fast  from  food  for  a  day 
in  order  that  the  general  food  supply  might  hold  out  the 
longer  was  a  public  benefactor,  and  he  who  would  make  a 
practice  of  fasting  during  the  siege  of  the  Holy  City  was 
in  very  truth  a  holy  man,  a  saint.  Thus  the  ascetic  Chris- 
tian of  today  continues  to  make  a  theological  virtue  of 
what  was  a  necessity  to  his  spiritual  forebears  in  the  cruel 
days  of  the  siege.  We  can  trace  to  this  same  source  the 
ecclesiastical  practice  of  ordaining  a  fast  day  immediately 
to  precede  a  feast  of  the  Church,  and  the  establishment  of 
F>iday,  the  day  before  the  Jewish  Sabbath  as  a  day  of 
abstinence  from  flesh  meat,  a  modified  form  of  the  heb- 
domadal fast  day  in  commemoration  of  the  fastings  and 
famine  of  the  siege. 

The  beleaguered  Jews,  who  were  apt  students  of  Roman 
methods  of  warfare,  were  not  slow,  we  may  be  sure,  to  find 
out  the  efficacy  of  famine  in  loosing  the  tongues  of  Roman 
prisoners  captured  during  the  siege.  Fasting  and  prayer 
were  frequently  foimd  necessary  to  make  articulate —^  not 
only  certain  demoniacs  afflicted  with  the  demon  of  dumb- 
ness when  no  other  form  of  exorcism  was  effective  (Mark 
9:17-29),  but  also  in  the  form  of  hunger  and  thirst  —  the 
Roman  devils  brought  within  the  gates,  and  who  possessed 
valuable  information  which  starvation  and  thirst  could 
more  readily  cast  out  of  them  than  could  the  sword. 


206  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

lar  proclamation  was,  in  dire  extremity,  put  up 
in  the  city  of  Jerusalem  just  prior  to  the  end  of 
the  siege  of  Titus,  and  this  proclamation  appears 
to  have  been  signed  by  the  three  Jewish  generals 
in  command  of  the  defenses  of  the  city,  namely, 
Simon,  John  and  Eleazar ;  for,  the  seemingly 
senseless  sentence,  "  The  oil  and  the  wine,  do-not- 
hurt,"  is  made  up  of  words  which,  in  Hebrew,  are 
but  homophones  of  these  generals'  names.  Shmn, 
unvoweled,  as  Hebrew  was  written,  stood  for 
"  Shimon,"  that  is,  Simon,  or  for  shemen,  oil. 
The  phrase  "  and  the  wine,"  in  Hebrew,  contains 
all  the  letters  of  the  word  "  Johannan,"  or  John. 
(See  Delitzsch's  translation  of  this  sentence  in 
his  Hebrew  New  Testament.)  The  phrase  "  do- 
not-hurt,"  or  "distress,"  or  "distrain,"  EV- 
eatzar,  is  a  fair  play  on  the  name  of  Simon's  son, 
Eleazar,  the  Pefros,  the  Rock. 

The  quotation  in  Rev.  6 :  6,  and  the  reference 
in  Rev.  2 :  20  to  Jezebel  are  apparently  inserted 
for  the  further  purpose  of  calling  the  reader's  at- 
tention to  the  chapters  in  I  and  II  Kings  in 
which  Jezebel's  name  occurs.  These  chapters 
contain  many  of  the  stories  of  which  the  Gospel 
miracle  tales  are  elaborations.  This  Old  Testa- 
ment reference  recalls  to  mind  the  fatherland  of 
the  Good  Samaritan  whom  the  Jewish  writer  of 
the  John  slurred  by  calling  him  a  Samaritan  and 
other  irrelevant  things.  It  brings  us  in  touch 
with  El-Isha,  who,  like  the  Jesus  (lesous,  i.  e.  Isha, 
or  leshua)    of  Josephus'  "  Life  "   and  "  Wars  " 


EXPOSURE  OF  MIRACLE  STORIES     207 

was  also  a  son  of  a  Shaphat.     El-isha  raised  a 
widow's  son  from  the  dead. 

He  cleansed  Naaman  of  his  leprosy  by  sending 
him  to  bathe  in  the  Jordan,  just  as  another  Isha, 
or  leshua,  cured  a  man  of  blindness  by  sending 
him  to  bathe  in  the  pool  of  Siloam ;  and  who  healed 
not  one,  but  ten  lepers  at  once  by  sending  them 
away  to  the  priests  (Luke  17:  12-14). 

Not  merely  two  men  were  healed  of  blindness,  but 
a  whole  army  was  given  sight  by  the  ancient 
prophet  of  Samaria. 

In  II  Kings,  4 :  42-44,  we  have  the  first  record 
of  the  miraculous  feeding  of  a  large  body  of  men 
with  a  few  loaves. 

It  is  in  II  Kings  we  find  that  the  "  first-be- 
gotten of  the  dead  "  was  not  the  one  referred  to 
in  the  first  chapter  of  Revelation,  but  the  son  of 
the  widow  of  Shunem,  which  later  became  known 
as  Nain,  the  very  locality  where  another  widow's 
son  was  later  raised  to  life.  The  corpse  that 
touched  the  body  of  El-Isha  was  "  born  again  of 
the  dead,"  and  came  to  life. 

It  is  in  the  First  Book  of  Kings  that  we  find  the 
original  miracles  of  which  those  of  El-Isha  were 
only  replicas :  but  it  is  the  forerunner  of  El-Isha 
who  ascends  into  heaven. 

Generally  speaking,  El-Isha  appears  to  be  a 
duplicated  P:ii-Jah,  the  same  divinity  described 
by  a  different  hand.  The  characters  of  Eli-Jah 
and  El-Isha  differ  as  the  characters  of  those  who 
describe  them,  just  as  the  Jesus  of  the  Apocalypse 


208  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

differs  from  the  Jesus  of  the  Synoptics.  Both 
Eli-Jah  and  El-Isha  are  called  Tishbites,  and 
neither  is  fitted  out  with  a  genealogy,  a  remark- 
able thing  in  Old  Testament  story.  They  both 
crossed  over  the  Jordan,  on  the  same  sort  of  a 
thoroughfare  as  Moses  employed  in  crossing  the 
Red  Sea,  But  neither  of  them  walked  upon 
water,  though  El-Isha  made  an  axe  float.  Each 
increased  a  Avidow's  supply  of  oil  miraculously, 
much  as  the  loaves  and  fishes  were  later  increased 
—  El-Isha  actually  multiplying  a  few  loaves  until 
they  sufficed  to  feed  a  great  number  of  men.  Each 
raised  to  life  a  widow's  son,  as  stated  before, — 
El-Isha  performing  his  miracle  on  the  site  of  the 
"  City  called  Nain,"  where  also  a  third  widow's 
son  gave  a  later  proof  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Resurrection.  Eli-Jah  w  as  described  by  a  cruder 
hand  than  that  which  gave  us  the  story  of  El- 
Isha,  which,  in  turn,  lacked  the  finer  touch  of  the 
New  Testament  scribe  who  wrote  in  after  days 
of  greater  comparative  refinement. 

As  Bentwich  says  of  another  period  in  the  life 
of  this  people,  "  Probably,  in  the  fashion  of  Jew- 
ish history,  the  events  of  a  later  time  were  placed 
in  the  popular  Midrash  a  few  generations  back 
and  repeated." 

Deuterononi}',  8  and  9,  contains  the  prototype 
of  the  story  of  the  test  or  temptation  of  the  Son 
of  Man  as  it  stands  in  the  Matthew  and  the  Luke. 
In  Deuteronomy  we  read  that  the  Israelites  were 
led  into  the  Wilderness  where,  not  for  forty  days. 


EXPOSURE  OF  MIRACLE  STORIES      «09 

but  for  forty  years  they  were  subject  to  trial. 
They  too,  after  having  hungered,  were  given  bread 
from  heaven  "  that  they  might  know  that  man 
doth  not  Hve  by  bread  alone  but  by  every  word 
that  proceedeth  from  the  mouth  of  God."  For 
"  forty  days  and  forty  nights  "  also  Moses  abode 
on  Mount  Horeb  in  the  Wilderness.  It  is  only 
in  outline,  however,  that  the  New  Testament 
story  of  the  temptation  is  borrowed  from  the  Pen- 
tateuch. 

The  story  of  the  temptation  of  the  Jesus,  taken 
literally,  is  full  of  puerilities  and  absurdities. 
What  strikes  one  who  examines  it  through  current 
theological  glasses,  is  the  appalling  stupidity  of 
the  tempter  in  offering  a  bribe  to  the  author  of 
all  things;  the  egregious  effrontery  of  the  out- 
cast and  the  disinherited  angel  offering  to  its 
actual  owner  a  property  to  which  the  maker  of 
the  offer  never  had  either  title  or  possession ;  and 
the  childish  thought  that  anybody  on  any  moun- 
tain on  this  round  earth  could  see  all  the  nations 
of  the  world.  A  tramp  offering  a  kingdom  to  an 
emperor  in  exchange  for  his  homage  would  be  in- 
finitely less  ridiculous.  The  acceptance  of  the 
literal  meaning  of  the  story  presumes  an  absolute 
lack  of  the  sense  of  humor  in  the  Deity.  More- 
over, to  be  tempted  presumes  a  temporary  disposi- 
tion, at  least,  in  the  tempted  to  yield  to  the  temp- 
tation, and  to  posit  moral  hesitation  or  vacilla- 
tion in  the  Deity  is  absurd. 

The  story  is  so  patently  puerile  that  it  must 


210  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

be  readily  apparent  to  every  rational  mind  that 
it  can  not  be  taken  literally,  and,  therefore,  it 
must  have  a  hidden,  or  cryptic,  meaning.  It  is, 
no  doubt,  an  account  of  the  attempts  which  the 
diabolos,  or  the  Slanderer,  Flavins  Josephus, 
made  to  corrupt  the  Son  of  Man  into  offering 
submission  to  him  as  the  authorized  representa- 
tive of  the  power  of  Rome.  The  term  diabolos 
is  not  used  by  the  Mark,  and  by  the  other 
two  Synoptics  only  in  connection  with  the  story 
of  the  temptation  and  the  parable  of  the  tares. 
The  Mark  prefers  to  call  the  traitor  by  the 
Aramaic  word  for  "  adversary,"  or  "  enemy." 
Josephus  himself  admits  that  he  tried  to  persuade 
the  patriotic  defenders  of  the  Holy  City  to  sub- 
mit to  Titus,  and  that  in  one  of  his  temptations 
he  was  rewarded  with  a  brick.  He  states  that 
Titus  offered  all  manner  of  guarantees  to  the 
leaders  if  they  would  but  come  down  and  acknowl- 
edge his  authority  over  them.  We  also  know  that 
Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man,  was  driven  by 
the  spirit  of  his  fiery  zeal  into  the  Wilderness  of 
Kadesh  and  there  he  stirred  up  the  inhabitants 
of  the  scattered  villages  against  the  Romans. 
The  Mark  text  of  the  temptation  story  says  of 
the  Jesus,  that  in  the  wilderness  "  he  was  with  the 
wild  beasts.'*  This  can  have  no  other  reference 
than  to  Simon's  undisciplined  soldiers,  who  were 
untamed  by  the  military  discipline  of  the  Romans, 
yet  who  fought  like  tigers  "  for  their  altars  and 
their   fires."     They  were,  in   all   probability,   so 


EXPOSURE  OF  MIRACLE  STORIES      211 

characterized  by  the  Romans,  who  had  reason  to 
know  their  terrible  bravery,  and  the  patriots 
themselves  accepted  the  designation  as  a  compli- 
ment. The  term  therion,  here  translated  "  wild 
beast,"  is  the  same  word  that  is  used  in  the  Apoc- 
alypse for  the  intrepid  Son  of  Man  liimself.  It 
is  not  at  all  improbable  that  the  Slanderer, 
Josephus,  sought  out  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  wild- 
erness either  in  person  or  through  some  of  his 
minions  — "  the  angels  [messengers]  ministered 
unto  liim," —  and  tried  to  induce  him  to  follow 
his  own  example  and  betray  the  Jewish  people. 

We  know  that  from  the  Wilderness  Simon  led 
great  forces  to  Jerusalem,  and  was  there  wel- 
comed —  according  to  Josephus  —  as  king  and 
savior.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  Slanderer 
again  renewed  his  solicitations  and  through  an 
intermediary  had  Bar  Gi'ora  taken  to  a  high 
wing  of  the  temple  or  on  a  hill-top  or  other  high 
elevation  within  the  city  walls  from  w^hich  he 
could  see  all  the  country  round  about,  and  the 
vast  armies  of  Titus,  gathered  from  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  world,  with  their  glittering  lances  and 
shining  shields,  encompassing  the  Holy  City  on 
every  side.  It  is  possible  that  the  Slanderer  had 
called  attention  to  this  display  of  military  splen- 
dor and  glory,  and  to  the  willingness  with  which 
all  other  peoples  on  the  then  known  earth  ac- 
knowledged the  supremacy  of  the  Roman,  and 
thereby  had  become  in  turn,  by  the  soldiers  they 
contributed  to  the  imperial  army,  partners  in  the 


SI 2  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

possession  of  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  And 
why  should  not  a  general  who  had  displayed  such 
military  genius  as  had  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  not  be 
offered  as  high  a  command  at  least  in  that  cosmo- 
politan army  as  Tiberius  Alexander,  the  apostate 
nephew  of  Philo,  the  Jewish  philosopher? 

No  one  Avill  deny  that  this  Slanderer,  this  cant- 
ing ex-priest,  could  quote  Scripture  volubly  to 
prove  to  the  Son  of  Man  that  it  was  his  divine  duty 
to  surrender,  and  that  it  had  been  foreordained 
for  him  so  to  do. 

Famine  raged  in  the  Holy  City,  and  this  fact 
was  not  unknown  to  Josephus,  nor  was  he  ignorant 
of  the  other  fact  that  Simon,  the  Son  of  Man, 
dreamed  the  dream  of  erecting,  resurrecting,  the 
ancient  kingdom  of  David,  and  of  establishing 
"  upon  this  rock  "  (Kephas,  or  his  son  Eleazar), 
an  everlasting  dynasty  that  the  gates  of  death 
should  not  prevail  against.  The  Slanderer,  of 
course,  would  tr}'  to  bring  him  back  from  these 
dreams  of  glory  to  the  hard  facts  of  reality,  the 
horrors  of  the  famine;  and  he  sneeringly  might 
ask  him  if  he  were  the  Messiah  of  the  prophets, 
the  emperor  who  was  to  conquer  the  Goiin,  why 
he  should  not  turn  "  this  rock  "  into  bread,  as 
bread  was  much  more  practical  for  present  needs 
than  the  elusive  rainbow  of  dynastic  glory.  The 
slandering  traitor's  taunt  of  famine  brought  forth 
a  reply  from  the  Son  of  Man  which  showed  his  un- 
faltering faith  in  God  and  the  promise  He  made 
through  His  prophets  that  the  pledged  word  of 


EXPOSURE  OF  MIRACLE  STORIES     213 

God  was  a  better  guarantee  of  life  than  any  mere 
material  bread. 

The  play  on  the  word  "  rock,"  or  "  stone  "  is 
made  twice.  The  second  reference  or  quotation 
appears  offered  as  a  warning  to  the  Son  of  Man 
to  have  a  care  lest  the  zeal  for  his  dynasty  be 
his  undoing,  lest  he  dash  his  foot  against  that 
stone  or  rock.  This  brought  the  retort  which 
showed  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  pro- 
phetic word  that  God  should  not  be  tempted,  that 
is,  that  He  should  not  be  put  on  trial  nor  his  word 
called  into  question. 

The  final  retort  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  refusing 
to  submit  to  the  servitude  of  Rome  was  the  ring- 
ing slogan  of  Judas  the  Galilean,  the  martyred 
founder  of  the  Zealots,  or  patriot  party :  "  Thou 
shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  Him  only 
shalt  thou  sers'e." 


XXVI 

OTHER  MIRACLES  AND  THE  PARABLES 

"  The  parables  of  Jesus  have  not  primarily  a  moral,  but 
a  politico-religious,  or  theocratic  purpose." —  Krummacher. 

The  miracle  stories  of  the  New  Testament, 
when  rightly  understood,  will  be  found  to  be 
worked-over  versions  of  plain  statements  of  his- 
torical fact  from  the  original  Semitic  sources  of 
the  Gospels. 

Thus,  the  story  of  the  Gadarene  miracle  in 
which  one  poor  body  was  unpacked  of  two  thou- 
sand demons  who,  in  a  country  where  traffic  in 
pork  was  an  abomination,  had  entered  into  a  herd 
of  hogs  in  some  unknown  and  unknowable  way, 
without  the  consent  of  the  owner  or  the  owned, 
and  dashed  down  with  the  livestock  into  the  water, 
loses  much  of  its  fantastic  features  when  we  rec- 
ognize in  it  the  other  side  of  the  incident  related 
by  Josephus, 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Gadarene  de- 
mons' name  was  "  Legion."  In  other  words  they 
constituted  a  legion,  the  Roman  legion  under 
Placidus  that  attacked  the  patriot  Jews  at  Ga- 
dara  and,  according  to  Josephus,  the  Roman 
horse  drove  the  insurgents  across  the  country  into 
214 


MIRACLES  AND  PARABLES    215 

the  Jordan  where  thousands  of  the  Jews  were 
drowned.  The  confusion  between  the  word  for 
"  horse,"  which,  in  Hebrew  is  sus,  and  the  Greek 
sus,  which  means  "  hog  "  is  readily  comprehensi- 
ble. 

The  original  version  of  the  Gospel  story  seems 
to  have  claimed  a  victory  for  the  Jews,  by  repre- 
senting that  it  was  the  Romans  who  were  driven 
into  the  waves.  The  pro-Jewish  version  of  the 
Gospel  and  the  anti-Jewish  version  of  Josephus 
—  each  records  the  victory  for  its  own  side.  This 
is  not  strange  in  view  of  the  variant  accounts  of 
the  naval  battle  of  the  Skagerack  which  came  from 
London  and  Berlin  respectively. 

It  is  no  more  improbable  that  two  thousand 
Romans  fell  into  the  waters  and  were  drowned, 
as  the  Gospels  indicate,  than,  as  Josephus  re- 
lates, that  two  thousand  two  hundred  Jews  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  meeting  a  less 
merciful  fate  than  the  thousands  of  their  brethren, 
who,  as  he  says,  lost  their  lives  in  the  torrent. 

In  the  Mark  account  we  find  the  strange  con- 
struction :  "  and  they  come  .  .  .  and  see  .  .  . 
sitting  and  clothed  and  tranquil,  him  who  had  the 
legion."  The  Greek  word  here  translated  "  tran- 
quil " —  though  in  the  King  James  version  it  is 
rendered  "  in-his-right-mind,"  and  in  the  Douay, 
"  well-in-his-wits  " — is  sophronounta,  the  Latin 
equivalent  of  which  is  placidus.  With  this  fact 
in  mind  the  passage  is  easily  translated:  "and 
they   come  .   .   .  and   see  .   .   .  robed   and   seated, 


216  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Placidus,  who  had  the  legion,  and  they  were  put 
to  flight  (ephobethesan) ."  The  last  word,  which 
is  translated  in  our  English  versions,  "  they  were 
afraid,"  is  the  first  aorist  passive  of  ephobeomai, 
a  word  which  is  never  used  by  Homer  except  in 
the  sense  of  being  put  to  flight. 

There  is  a  certain  awkwardness  in  the  verse 
Avhich  reads  in  the  A.  V.,  "  and  no  man  could  bind 
him,  no  not  with  chains."  The  Greek  presents  a 
more  inverted  order,  which  the  Revisers  try  to 
exhibit  by  *'  and  no  man  could  any  more  bind  him, 
no  not  with  a  chain."  Like  most  inverted  or  awk- 
ward constructions  in  the  New  Testament,  this 
one  involves  some  hidden  information.  When  we 
know  that  "  man  "  in  Semitic  is  Gibhora,  that  I 
is  the  sign  of  the  negative,  and  asar  a  "  bond," 
or  a  "  chain,"  and  that  Delitzsch  has  actually 
rendered  the  phrase  "  not  bind  "  back  into  He- 
brew by  lasr,  the  reshim  for  Eleasar,  or  Eleazar, 
in  an  unpointed  text,  the  original  meaning  begins 
to  appear,  namely,  that  "  Gi'ora  nor  Eleazar 
could  any  longer  restrain  him." 

There  is  also  mordant  humor  in  the  play  upon 
the  name  of  the  Roman  general,  who,  in  the  mind 
of  the  writer  of  the  Gospel  story,  was  not  indeed 
placid,  but  distraught,  a  madman  with  a  legion 
at  his  command. 

This  demoniac,  who  had  an  unclean  spirit,  had 
come  out  of  the  tombs.  It  is  known  that  the  City 
of  Tiberias  was  built  by  Herod  the  tetrarch  on 
the  site  of  a  cemetery.     Herod  forced  Galileans 


MIRACLES  AND  PARABLES    217 

against  their  wills  to  live  in  the  new  city.  Jo- 
sephus  says,  "  he  was  aware  that  to  make  this 
place  a  habitation  was  to  transgress  the  ancient 
laws  of  the  Jews,  because  many  sepulchres  were 
to  be  taken  away  in  order  to  make  room  for  the 
city  of  Tiberias,  whereas  our  law  pronounces  that 
such  inhabitants  are  unclean  for  seven  days  " 
(Antiquities  XVIII  2,  3).  Even  to  this  day  the 
plastered  or  "  whited  sepulchres  "  are  to  be  seen 
standing  at  the  outskirts  of  the  ancient  city. 

Tiberias  was  one  of  the  cities  fortified  by  Jo- 
sephus.  Here  he  fled  after  he  had  abandoned 
Gadara  to  the  Romans,  and  in  turn  he  quickly 
abandoned  Tiberias  to  flee  to  Jotapata.  It  was 
from  Tiberias,  or  Caper-Naham,  the  "  City  of 
Mourning,"  this  graveyard  city,  this  ritualisti- 
cally  unclean  city,  that  Placidus  had  come  to  at- 
tack the  Jews  who  had  fled  from  Gadara. 

The  identity  of  Tiberias  is  hidden  in  the  New 
Testament  under  the  name  Capernaum.  The  cus- 
tomary chronology  would  not  permit  the  use  of 
the  name  Tiberias,  for  that  city  was  not  built 
until  about  the  third  decade  of  the  Christian  era. 
The  exact  location  of  Capernaum  has  been  as 
great  a  puzzle  as  Nazareth.  Neither  is  mentioned 
as  a  city  in  any  Jewish  writings  for  very  good  and 
sufficient  reasons.  Capernaum  was  the  home  of 
the  Jesus  according  to  the  Gospels,  as  Tiberias 
was  the  abode  of  the  Jesus  of  Josephus.  {Vita 
12). 

As  in  the  Gaderene  miracle  story,  in  the  miracle 


218  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

of  the  loaves  and  fishes  in  Mark  6,  the  very  idiom 
of  the  camp  breaks  out.  The  five  thousand  men 
who  were  in  the  Wilderness  were  ordered  "  to  sit 
down  by  companies  upon  the  grass.  And  they 
sat  down  in  ranks,  by  hundreds  and  by  fifties  " — 
regular  military  phraseology.  It  is  specifically 
stated  that  the  five  thousand  present  were  men 
(andres)y  that  is  to  say,  males,  and  there  were 
no  women  present  on  that  particular  occasion. 

The  sense  of  military  discipline  in  the  Son  of 
Man  appears  in  the  stern  language  he  addressed 
to  Eleazar,  the  Peter,  as  recorded  in  the  Synop- 
tics. 

Josephus  has  shown  there  were  many  in  the 
beleaguered  City  who  were  heart-sick  of  the  siege. 
So  awful  were  the  hardships  and  horrors  endured 
that  only  his  intense  faith  in  divine  intervention 
kept  up  even  Bar  Gi'ora's  hopes.  More  than  one 
would-be  deserter,  more  than  one  who  would  open 
the  gates  to  the  Romans,  and  more  than  one  who 
would  in  desperation  get  after  and  put  an  end 
to  the  stubborn  and  faith-firm  Bar  Gi'ora  himself 
met  the  usual  military  punishment  which  the  Ro- 
mans likewise  meted  out  for  such  military  offenses. 
The  cross  was  the  favorite  instrument  of  disci- 
pline. 

Josephus  relates  a  lack  of  harmony  existing 
between  Bar  Gi'ora  and  Eleazar.  He  exagger- 
ates it,  perhaps,  even  to  armed  hostility.  In  the 
Synoptics  (Mark  8  and  Matt.  16)  we  find  it  re- 
lated, "  The  Peter  took  hold  of  him  and  began  to 


MIRACLES  AND  PARABLES    219 

rebuke  him.  But  when  he  turned  about  and  faced 
his  followers  he  said,  '  Get  yourself  behind  me, 
adversary ;  ^  you  are  a  stumbling  block  to  me.' 
.  .  .  And  when  he  called  the  people  and  his  follow- 
ers he  said,  *  If  any  man  wishes  to  get  after  me, 
let  him  resign  himself,  and  take  his  cross  along 
as  he  pursues  me.  For  whoever  tries  to  save 
his  life  shall  lose  it;  but  he  who  shall 
offer  up  his  life  on  my  account  and  that 
of  the  good  cause  shall  save  it.  Now  what  shall 
it  profit  a  man  if  in  trying  to  gain  the  great 
world  he  lose  his  own  life?  Or  what  shall  a  man 
barter  for  his  life?  '  " 

The  warning  that  any  person  who  would  wish 
treacherously  to  pursue  the  Son  of  Man  should 
take  his  cross  along  with  him,  is  significant.  To 
read  into  the  stern  warning  an  impossible  or  a 
miraculous  fore-knowledge  of  his  own  doom  is  not 
necessary.  There  is  no  necessity  to  resort  to 
the  miraculous   to   explain  the   sentence. 

The  Son  of  Man  not  only  threatened  against 
treason,  but  he  promised  great  rewards  for  fidel- 
ity to  the  cause  of  independence.  And  these  re- 
wards were  not  mere  ghostly,  but  very  tangible 
things.     In  Mark  10  we  find  his  reply  to  those 

1  Delitzsch,  in  his  Hebrew  translation  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, has  rendered  the  expression  "  Get  thee  behind  me, 
adversary,"  by  Sur  miele  ha  satan.  By  substituting  for 
the  last  word  its  exact  Hebrew  synonym,  tzar,  we  have 
the  Hebrew  sentence,  Sur  mi  ele  ha  tzar,  or  Sur  mi  Elea- 
tzar,  "  Turn  back  of  me,  Eleazar,"  which  approximates  very 
closely,  it  is  highly  probable,  the  true  form  of  the  original 
text. 


220  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

who  had  reminded  him  with  forebodings  that  they 
had  left  all  to  follow  him.  "  There  is  no  one  who 
has  left  house,  or  brothers,  or  sisters,  or  father, 
or  mother,  or  wife,  or  children,  or  home,  on  my 
account  and  the  good  cause,  but  shall  receive  in 
return  a  hundredfold  right  now  in  his  lifetime  in 
houses,  and  brothers,  and  sisters,  and  mothers,  and 
children,  and  lands." 

We  know  very  well  that  this  promise  was  not 
fulfilled  in  his  followers,  who  gave  their  lives  and 
lost  them  and  their  all  for  the  great  cause.  The 
fulfilment  of  the  promise  was  conditioned  upon 
the  success  of  the  patriot  cause  which  failed,  un- 
fortunately, though  through  no  fault  of  the  Son 
of  Man.  His  failure  to  make  good  his  guarantee 
would  be  culpable  only  if  he  had  the  power  to 
perform  what  he  promised  and  did  not.  Any 
other  theory  makes  only  false  and  unfulfilled 
prophecy  of  his  words. 

Some  of  the  Parables  appear  to  convey  a  mes- 
sage of  ethical  import,  yet  many  of  them  have  no 
such  message,  and,  superficially,  seem  to  have  no 
point  at  all. 

The  parables  in  Matthew  comparing  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  to  a  mustard  seed  or  to  leaven 
which  a  woman  places  in  a  quantity  of  meal,  as 
they  now  stand,  are  pointless,  puerile  and  quite 
unworthy  the  mind  of  their  reputed  author.  But 
when  we  understand  that  the  parables,  or  similes, 
do  not  relate  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven  (Syriac, 


MIRACLES  AND  PARABLES    221 

Shimain),  whicli  Is  supposed  to  be  in  re  and  not 
m  potentia,  but  to  the  Kingdom  of  Simon  (i.  e. 
Sliimaoii),  they  command  our  respect.  There 
were  evidently  doubters  in  tlie  beginning  of  the  re- 
volt who  could  not  believe  that  the  great  Kingdom 
of  David  could  be  re-established  from  such  small 
beginnings  as  that  of  the  Kingdom  of  Simon,  then 
scarcely  more  than  in  the  germ,  but  Simon  Bar 
Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man,  sought  familiar  illustra- 
tions from  nature  to  convince  the  doubters  that 
the  greatest  things  often  gi*ow  from  the  tiniest 
seeds. 

The  parables  in  INIark  display  the  primary 
purpose  to  involve  in  some  word  or  words  the 
cryptic  name  which  identifies  the  Son  of  jNIan  with 
the  historical  persQn,  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora.  In  Mark 
4 :  33,  we  read,  "  And  with  many  such  parables 
spake  he  the  xcord  unto  them."  That  the  xvord 
was  cryptic  is  evident  from  the  sentence  of  Mat- 
thew 13:14,  incorrectly  quoted  from  Isaiah  6:9, 
"  By  hearing  ye  shall  hear  and  shall  not  under- 
stand." This  cryptic  word  which  the  uninitiated 
would  hear  and  not  understand,  is  his  real  name. 
It  is  always  found  in  the  parables  and  likewise 
elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament  where  the  taunt- 
ing words  appear,  "  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let 
him  hear," —  e^ddently  a  hint  that  attention  must 
be  concentrated  upon  the  sound  of  the  word  rather 
than  upon  its  orthography.  Moreover,  the  very 
word  for  "  hearing  "  is,  in  Hebrew,  Shimeon,  or, 
Simon.     Yet   there   is   a   satisfaction   in  knowing 


a22  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  real  truth  of  the  prophecy,  "  There  is  nothing 
hid,  which  shall  not  be  manifested ;  neither  was 
anything  kept  secret  but  it  shall  come  abroad  " 
(Mark  4:22). 

Frequently  these  parables  begin  with  the  hidden 
word  by  some  such  expressions  as  "  Hearken," 
(Shivwon),  Behold  (iora)  ;  "A  certain  man," 
(Gibhora).  Elsewhere  the  hidden  word  is  con- 
cealed in  the  body  of  the  parable,  as,  "  by  the 
Avayside,"  (horah),  or  in  the  expression  that 
startles  modern  minds  accustomed  to  scientific 
caveats  against  microbes  and  germs,  "  There  is 
nothing  from  without  a  man  that  entering  in  can 
defile  him :  but  the  things  which  come  out  of  him, 
those  are  they  that  can  defile  the  man"  (Syriac, 
I  Bar  Gibhora). 

In  the  parable  of  the  five  wise  virgins  {bethulah 
means  either  "virgin"  or  "city"),  who  had  oil 
(ShMN,  the  same  characters  as  the  name  Shimon) 
with  them  when  they  met  the  bridegroom  (hathan, 
pronounced  like  hasan,  "made  strong"),  we  rec- 
ognize the  five  wise  cities  that  fortifwd  for  Shimon, 
namely  Sepphoris,  Tiberias,  Tai'ichea,  Jotapata 
and  Gamala,  though  Josephus,  with  his  usual 
modesty,  claims  for  himself  alone  the  credit  of 
building  their  strongholds. 

The  first  parable,  that  of  the  sower  (in  the 
Mark  4,  the  Luke  8  and  the  INIatthew  13)  is  a 
thinly,  yet  very  cleverly,  concealed  cryptic  ac- 
count of  the  military  manoeuvres  of  Simon  Bar 
Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man,  and  Eleazar,  the  Peter, 


MIRACLES  AND  PARABLES        223 

against  Vespasian  when  he  undertook  to  land  his 
Roman  legions  at  Tyre  in  67  of  the  Christian  era. 
Rendered  into  plain  language  it  parallels  very 
closely  the  account  of  the  same  event  as  related 
by  Josephus,  although  a  later  hand  has  tried  to 
conceal  the  name  of  Bar  Gi'ora  in  that  story. 
The  narrative  in  the  Mark  has  a  seeming  redun- 
dancy in  the  very  first  sentence,  and  some  editors 
have  taken  out  of  their  texts  the  "  unnecessary  " 
word.  It  begins  "  Hearken,  behold,  a  sower  went 
forth  to  sow."  The  second  word,  which  some 
have  regarded  a  superfluity,  is  very  necessary  to 
the  elucidation  of  the  text.  The  "  parable,"  un- 
covered of  its  veil  of  crypticism,  reads  as  fol- 
lows : 

"  Shimeon  and  Eleazar  went  forth  toward  Tyre. 
And  when  near  Tyre,  some  from  Tyre  fell  upon 
Bar  Gi'ora,  but  the  attack  of  Simon  utterly 
destroyed  them.  Some  fell  upon  Eleazar  in  the 
Galilees,  where  he  had  not  many  men,  and  there 
got  established  because  not  many  men  were  there. 
But  when  up  came  Bar  Gi'ora  they  were  scorched, 
and  because  they  had  no  base  they  withered  away. 
And  some  fell  among  Samaritans,  and  the  Samari- 
tans rising-up-together  annihilated  them.  But 
others  fell  on  the  Land  of  Tob,  where  they  got  a 
foothold  and  produced  successful  results,  some 
thirty,  some  sixty  and  some  a  hundred  times. 
Who  hath  ears  for  Shimeon  let  him  understand 
[Shrnieon]."'^ 

1  The  original  text  of  the  parable  was  about  as  follows: 


224<  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

From  Josephus,  Vita  74 ;  Wars  III,  2:4  ff ,  we 
learn  that  Vespasian  came  to  land  at  Tyre.  He 
brought  an  army  from  Antioch,  to  Tyre  and 
for  some  reason  unexplained  by  Josephus,  he  did 
not  drive  directly  toward  Jerusalem,  but  marched 

Shimeon  and  ["Hearken,"  Shlme-u,  imperative,  second 
person  plural  of  Shimeon,  "hearing";  u,  "and"]  Elea-zar 
[Elu,  "behold";  ha-zor',  "a  sower"]  went  forth  toward 
["to  sow,"  Zoro,  Hebrew  for  Tyre]  Tyre.  And  when  near 
Tyre  some  from  ["the  seed,"  Zoro]  Tyre  fell  upon  ["the 
wayside,  ba-bar  ha  orach]  Bar  Gi'orah.  But  ["the  birds," 
oj}h,  also  "attack"]  the  attack  ["of  the  heavens,"  Shi- 
7nain]  of  Shimeon  destroyed  ["devoured,"  akal,  also  "de- 
stroyed"] them.  Some  fell  vpon  ["upon  stony,"  Ele-ha- 
zur]  Eleazar  ["places,"  Galilah]  in  the  Galilees  where 
there  were  not  many  ["much  earth,"  adam,  also  "man"] 
men,  and  forthwith  they  ["sprung  up"]  yot  a  foothold 
because  there  were  not  ["much  earth,"  many  men]  many 
men.  But  when  came  up  [aBar,  "came  up"]  Bar  Gi'ora 
["the  sun,"  ha  ora]  they  were  scorched  and  because  they 
had  no  base  ["root"]  they  withered  away.  And  some  fell 
among  Samaritans  ["thorns,"  Shamir,  a  thorn]  and  the 
Samaritans  ["thorns"]  rising  up  together  annihilated 
["choked"]  thein  [and  it  bore  no  fruit].  But  others  fell 
on  the  Land  of  Tob  [Eretz  Tob,  also  "good  earth"]  where 
they  ["bore  fruit,  sprung  up"]  got  a  foothold  and  ["in- 
creased and  yielded"]  produced  results,  some  thirty,  some 
sixty,  and  some  a  hundred  times.  Who  hath  ears  for 
Shimeon   ["hearing"]    let   him  understand    [Shimeon]. 

When  one  realizes  that  ancient  manuscripts  were  written 
without  spaces  between  words,  with  many  words  contracted 
or  abbreviated,  that  spelling  was  not  a  fixed  science,  that 
quiescent  letters  were  written  or  omitted  to  suit  the  whim 
of  the  scribe,  that  in  Hebrew  certain  characters  repre- 
senting cognate  sounds  were  interchangeable,  and  that 
Semitic  words  were  written  without  vowels,  as  commercial 
short-hand  is,  but  without  vowel  position,  one  can  better 
understand  how  a  cryptic  history  may  be  involved  in  a 
simple  edifying  tale. 


MIRACLES  AND  PARABLES    225 

down  along  the  Mediterranean  coast  to  Ptolemais, 
where  he  awaited  Titus  from  Alexandria.  Bar 
Gi'ora  evidently  successfully  resisted  the  first  at- 
tack, and  this  was,  doubtless,  the  unexplained 
reason  for  the  action  of  Vespasian.  Eleazar, 
however,  not  having  a  sufficient  force  in  Galilee, 
gave  way  to  Placidus,  who  obtained  a  foothold 
until  Simon  leading  the  patriots  brought  up  re- 
inforcements and  Placidus  withdrew  to  Ptolemais, 
from  whence  the  Romans  moved  on  to  Caesarea- 
by-the-Sea. 

The  story  of  the  success  of  the  Samaritans  is 
reversed  by  Josephus,  who  makes  the  Roman  gen- 
eral, Cerealis,  annihilate  11,600  Samaritans.  The 
idea  of  devouring  the  seed,  or  the  cereal,  a  play 
on  the  name  Cerealis,  doubtless  suggested  the 
theme  of  the  parable.  The  Romans  made  their 
way  from  Caesarea  to  Caesarea  Philippi  through 
Coele-Syria,  to  Perea  and  the  ancient  "  Land  of 
Tob,"  where  they  strongly  established  themselves. 
The  order  of  events  as  related  in  the  parable  is 
the  same  as  that  observed  in  Josephus. 

This  is  one  of  the  few  parables  that  is  given  a 
subsequent  "  explanation."  Its  true  meaning 
was  so  nearly  transparent  that  it  became  neces- 
sary to  give  a  religio-ethical  interpretation  in  or- 
der to  throw  the  uninitiated  off  the  track  of  its 
true  sense.  The  "  explanation "  of  parables  is 
inserted  for  the  same  purpose  as  the  etymology 
of  manufactured  Hebrew  words  such  as  Golgotha, 
Boanerges,  etc.     Twice  in  this  parable  are  given 


226  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  monitory  words,  "  Who  hath  ears  for  Shi- 
meon,  let  him  understand,"  the  official  label  of  a 
crypticism.  After  the  second  notice,  however,  we 
are  given  this  reassuring  guarantee,  "  for  there 
is  nothing  hidden  which  shall  not  be  manifested, 
neither  was  anything  kept  secret  which  should 
come  abroad,"  a  plain  avowal  of  the  crypticism 
of  the  parable. 

Josephus,  who  is  silent  about  the  part  Bar 
Gi'ora  took  in  resisting  the  landing  of  the  Ro- 
mans, mentions  that  Vespasian  "  fell  from  Ga- 
bara,"  (accent  on  the  second  syllable),  a  strong- 
hold or  locality  evidently  named  after  Gi'ora,  or 
Gibhora  and  commonly  called  Migdal  Gahara,  or 
"  Gibhora's  Tower."  This  is  the  nearest  ap- 
proach Josephus  makes  to  the  Aramaic  orthog- 
raphy of  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora's  name.  The  same 
name  is  evidently  intended  in  Wars  III,  7:31, 
where  Josephus  tells  us  how  the  "  men  of  Power  " 
fell  upon  the  Romans  in  the  streets  of  Japha.  As 
the  history  of  Josephus  was  written  originally  in 
Aramaic,  the  name  of  the  intrepid  leader  of  the 
Jews  was,  evidently,  here  translated  from  the 
Aramaic  Gibhora,  which  means  "  power,"  and  was 
not  transliterated  or  phonetically  rendered,  as  is 
usual,  into  the  Greek  text. 


XXVII 
THE  BEATITUDES 

Next  to  the  Parables  in  importance  rank  the 
other  reputed  sayings  of  the  Son  of  Man  known  as 
the  Beatitudes. 

The  Mark  Gospel  does  not  contain  a  text  of  the 
so-called  Beatitudes,  and  this  is  a  matter  of  re- 
gret. Had  the  writer  of  the  Mark  given  us  a 
version  of  them,  we  could  approach  nearer  their 
original  text  than  we  can  by  means  of  anything 
we  find  in  the  Matthew  or  the  Luke.  We  possess, 
however,  sufficient  information  from  which  to 
form  a  reasonable  approximation  to  the  original 
reading. 

The  later  the  Gospel  is  the  greater  tendency 
it  manifests  to  get  away  from  the  concrete  and 
the  tangible,  and  to  spiritualize,  to  denaturalize, 
to  mysticize  the  real,  hard,  solid,  tri-dimensional 
facts  of  common,  every-day  experience.  Four  of 
the  Beatitudes  of  the  Matthew  are  idealized  elab- 
orations of  their  parallels  which  we  find  in  the 
Luke.  When  the  Luke  blesses  the  poor,  the  Mat- 
thew blesses  the  poor  m  spirit.  When  the  Luke 
beatifies  those  who  suffer  the  physical  pangs  of 
227 


228  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

bodily  hunger,  the  Matthew  beatifies  those  who 
hunger  after  righteousness.  The  writer  of  the 
Matthew  not  only  elaborates  the  simple  expres- 
sions of  the  Luke,  but  he  expands  their  number 
to  two-fold,  introducing  four  new  idealistic  max- 
ims wliich  have  no  concrete  parallel  in  the  Luke. 
In  the  same  degree  and  to  a  similar  extent  that 
the  Matthew  has  consciously  departed  from  the 
text  of  the  Luke,  the  Luke  has  wandered  away 
from  his  original  text. 

The  Semitic  equivalent  for  "  Blessed,"  the  word 
with  which  each  of  the  Beatitudes  begins  and 
from  which  the  designation  is  derived,  is,  as  we 
show  elsewhere,  only  a  variant  for  the  name  of 
the  Son  of  Man.  The  original  text  of  the  Beati- 
tudes was  apparently  only  a  short  litany  of  praise 
composed  by  his  admiring  followers  to  sustain  the 
hopes  and  to  hearten  both  commander  and  com- 
manded in  the  great  struggle  between  national 
self-assertion  and  national  annihilation. 

The  evolution  of  the  Beatitudes  outlined  above 
can  best  be  observed  by  setting  the  texts  side  by 
side  in  parallel  columns,  as  presented  below.  In 
this  manner  light  is  thrown  upon  the  whole  proc- 
ess of  idealization  through  which  the  Gospel 
story  has  been  passed  from  the  history  of  an  in- 
tensely real  effort  for  the  establishment  of  a 
concrete  kingdom  on  the  solid  soil  of  Pales- 
tine to  the  attenuated  hope  and  pious  yearn- 
ing for  a  nebular  kingdom  beyond  the  stars. 
Thus,  we  have: 


THE  BEATITUDES  229 

riie  Matthew  Text     The    Luke    Text      Probable    Original 
Matt.   5:3-11:  Luke  6: -20-23:  Text: 

Blessed    are    the       Blessed     are     ye       Borah,  poor 

poor  in  spirit:  for  poor:  for  yours  is  (bRoah) :  yours 
theirs  is  the  king-  the  Kingdom  of  the  kingdom,  Shi- 
dom  of  heaven.        God.  maon. 

Blessed  are  they  Blessed     are     ye  Borah    now    sor- 

that     mourn:      for  that      weep      now:  rows;   he   shall   re- 

they  shall  be  com-  for  ye  shall  laugh,  joice. 
forted. 

Blessed  are  they  Blessed     are     ye       Borah         suffers 

tliat     hunger     and  that    hunger    now:   hunger      now:      he 

thirst    after    right-  for     ye     shall     be   shall     have     abun- 

eousness:    for   they  filled.                             dance, 
shall  be  filled. 

Blessed  are  ye  Blessed  are  ye  Borah,  hated, 
when  men  shall  when  men  shall  isolated,  reviled, 
revile  you,  and  hate  you,  and  his  name  turned 
persecute  you,  and  when  they  shall  into  an  evil  sense 
shall  say  all  man-  separate  you  from  (borah,  "  blasphe- 
ner  of  evil  against  their  company,  and  mer"),  the  name 
you  falsely,  for  shall  reproach  you,  of  Bar  Gi'ora. 
my   sake.  and   cast  out  your 

name    as    evil,    for 

the    Son    of    Man's 

sake. 

Blessed    are    the                                           (Borah,  the 

meek:       for      they  meek:       he  shall 

shall     inherit     the  reign       over  the 

earth.  earth.) 

Blessed  are  the 
merciful:  for  they 
shall  obtain  mercy. 

Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart:  for 
thev  shall  see  God. 


230  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Blessed  are  they 
that  have  been 
persecuted  for 

righteousness'  sake : 
*or  theirs  is  the 
iingdom  of  heaven. 

Blessed  are  the 
peacemakers:  for 
they  shall  be  called 
the   sons   of   God. 

The  expression,  "  the  peace-makers,"  is  in 
Semitic,  Bari  Shalom.  This  combination  of  let- 
ters, with  the  vowel  points  omitted  (as  was  the 
invariable  rule  in  the  oldest  manuscripts)  might 
also  stand  for  "  Sons  of  Peace,"  "  Sons  of  Solo- 
mon," or  "  Sons  of  Salome."  Commentators 
commonly  refer  to  James  and  John  the  Boanerges, 
the  "  Sons  of  Zebedee,"  as  "  the  sons  of  Salome," 
the  supposed  wife  of  Zebedee  — "  Peace "  and 
"  War  " —  a  well-matched  couple,  if,  indeed,  the 
adage  be  true  that  only  opposites  should  marry. 
We,  therefore,  find  that  the  "  Sons  of  Peace " 
were  also  "  Sons  of  War,"  or  "  Sons  of  Carnage," 
or  Boanerges. 

The  promise  that  the  "  Sons  of  War,"  who  had 
become  the  "  Sons  of  Peace,"  should  also  be  called 
the  "  Sons  of  God,"  evidences  the  evolutionary 
process  of  religious  ideas  which  we  have  noted 
above. 


XXVIII 
THE  "LORD'S  PRAYER" 

The  Beatitudes,  though  much  admired  as  they 
certainly  are,  have  not  entered  into  the  daily  lives 
of  Christians  to  such  an  extent  as  has  the  com- 
position Avhich  is  commonly  called,  the  "  Lord's 
Prayer."  This  appears  under  examination  to  be 
in  reality  a  petition  from  his  faithful  soldiers  ad- 
dressed to  the  Son  of  Man. 

Although  short,  it  is  a  composition  in  three 
parts,  a  diplomatic  document.  The  first  part  or 
preamble  is  what  rhetoricians  would  call  "  an  ex- 
ordium by  insinuation,"  the  psychological  aim  of 
which  is  first,  to  win  the  good  graces  of  the  peti- 
tioned. The  second  part  contains  the  petition, 
and  the  third  is  a  pjean  of  praise  calculated  to 
keep  the  petitioned  in  a  mood  to  grant  the  prayer 
of  the  petitioners. 

There  are  some  peculiarities  of  construction  in 
the  Greek  text  M'hich  are  very  much  altered  in 
form  in  our  English  versions.  For  instance,  the 
sentence,  "  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven,"  stands  in  the  Greek  text  as  follows,  "  Thy 
will  be  done,  as  in  heaven,  so  on  earth,"  an  inver- 
sion which  the  genius  of  the  Greek  language  re- 
quires no  more  than  does  that  of  the  English. 
231 


232  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

When  it  is  considered  that  the  word  for  "  heaven  " 
is  in  Aramaic  Shimain,  and  that  the  first  name  of 
the  Son  of  Man  was  Shimaon,  the  real  meaning 
becomes  apparent:  "May  thy  will  be  done, 
Shimaon,  over  the  earth." 

The  word  in  the  Greek  text  variously  translated 
"  daily  "  "  day  by  day,"  "  sufficient  "  and  "  super- 
substantial,"  namely,  epiousion,  has  worried  trans- 
lators from  the  days  of  St.  Jerome  to  our  own, 
and  none  of  them  feeling  justified  to  render  it  in 
its  plain,  every-day,  obvious  sense  of  "  coming," 
"  on-coming,"  "  approaching,"  or  "  impending," 
each  of  them  has  recorded  his  individual  guess  at 
the  meaning  to  fit  the  context. 

The  fact  which  puzzled  all  was  that  the  plain 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  in  their  judgment, 
would  not  do  as  a  modifier  for  artos,  the  Greek 
for  "  bread."  "  The  bread  that  is  to  come,  give 
us  to-da}',"  did  not  to  them  seem  to  make  sense. 
When,  however,  one  knows  that  artos  is  the  Greek 
for  the  Semitic  lahem,  which  means  not  only 
"bread,"  but  "war,"  (Judges,  5:8),  the  true 
meaning  of  the  sentence  becomes  apparent. 

The  force  of  the  expression  "  is-to-come "  is 
illustrated  by  the  English  idiom,  "  to  have  to  do 
a  thing."  This  idiom  originated  from  the  phrase, 
"  to  have  a  thing  to  do,"  by  a  "  shift  of  em- 
phasis," as  Whitney  says,  in  his  Life  and  Growth 
of  Language,  "  whereby  the  noun  is  viewed  no 
longer  as  object  of  the  have,  but  rather  of 
the  other  verb,  the  infinitive."     A   similar  idiom 


THE   "LORD'S  PRAYER"  233 

exists  in  Latin,  in  the  use  of  the  gerundive. 
Epistola  scrihenda  est  may  mean,  according  to  the 
context,  "  A  letter  is  to  be  written,"  or  "  A  letter 
has  to  be  written,"  that  is,  "  A  letter  must  be 
written."  It  is  a  short  step  from  "  the  war  that 
is  to  come,"  to  "  the  war  that  has  to  come,"  and 
this  is  the  very  idea  expressed  in  the  Syriac 
Peshitto  text,  where  the  word  that  equates  with 
epiousion  is  translated  "  necessary."  Thus,  "  the 
war  that  is  to  come  "  in  the  Greek  becomes  in  the 
Peshitto  Syriac,  "  the  war  that  has  to  come," 
the  "  necessary  war,"  that  is  to  say,  "  the  inevita- 
ble war."  So,  the  common  Greek,  which  seemed 
so  utterly  out  of  harmony  with  the  Peshitto,  and 
has  been  a  stone  of  offense  to  commentators,  is 
seen  to  be  in  perfect  agreement  with  the  Syriac 
version. 

The  petition,  "  lead  us  not  into  temptation,"  as 
it  is  usually  translated,  seems  a  strange  one  to 
address  to  an  infinitely  good  being  —  quite  as 
strange  as  to  say  to  an  honest  man,  "  Please,  do 
not  steal  my  pocket  book."  When,  however,  we 
know  that  the  petition  should  read,  "  introduce 
us  into  no  experiment,"  and  that  it  was  addressed 
to  one  considered  to  be  a  finite  and  fallible  being, 
the  admonition,  full  of  prayerful  caution,  we 
plainly  see,  contains  no  suggestion  of  offence. 

Commentators,  no  less  than  translators,  have 
been  puzzled  with  the  last  word  in  the  petition. 
The  word  that  ends  the  sentence  is  an  adjective. 
It  is  preceded  by  the   article.     The  noun  which 


234>  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

the  article  and  the  adjective  modify  has  been  lost. 
Some  faithful  translators  have  rendered  the  clause, 
"  but  deliver  us  from  the  evil."  The  primary 
sense  of  the  Greek  word  poneros  is  not  "  evil,"  but 
"  oppressive."  "  Evil  "  is  only  a  secondary  mean- 
ing which  is  arrived  at  through  the  fact  that  all 
oppression  is  evil.  The  usual  Greek  word  for 
"  bad  "  or  "  evil  "  is  kakos.  The  correct  transla- 
tion is  the  plain,  obvious  sense  of  the  word 
poneros,  that  is,  "  oppressive."  The  noun  has 
been  elided,  but  the  reason  for  its  omission  is  not 
difficult  to  find.  It  is  evident  that  the  word 
omitted  was  "  Roman."  It  would  not  be  good 
policy  for  missionaries  among  the  proudest  people 
that  ever  trod  the  earth  to  let  the  word  stand,  and, 
so,  in  the  interest  of  the  cause,  it  was  deleted. 
The  clause  "  but  deliver,"  or  "  rid  us  of  the  op- 
pressive [Roman],"  is  a  literal  translation  of  the 
words  of  the  text. 

The  Petition,  as  it  originally  stood,  was  very 
evidently  as  follows : 

("Greek,  Pater,  father         1    liberator  thou  art, 
^       [Hebrew,  Pater,  liberatorj      Shimaon; 
Borah   ["Blessed"]   is  thy  name,   [indeed]. 
May  thy  kingdom  [haste]  to-come; 
May  thy  will  be  done,  Shimaon, 
Over  the  earth. 

The  war  that  is-to-come,  give  us  immediately. 
And  free  us  from  our  taxes, 

As  we  exonerate  those  owing  us  tribute. 


THE   "LORD'S  PRAYER"  235 

Introduce  us  into  no  experiment, 

But  rid  us  of  the  oppressive  [Roman]. 

For  thine  is  the  kingdom,  Gi'ora, 
And  the  glory,  forever. 

That  this  is  not,  of  course,  a  prayer  made  by 
the  Lord,  but  a  Petition  made  to  the  Lord  (Ha 
Gibhora)  by  his  faithful  followers  will  be  obvious 
to  every  reader  who  has  thus  far  followed  the 
argument  establishing  the  historical  identity  of  the 
Son  of  Man. 


XXIX 

EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHRONOLOGY 

"  Ecclesiastical  writings  contain  many  forgeries,  made 
for  the  purpose  of  propagating  or  confirming  opinion.  .  .'  . 
Literary  forgeries  are  generally  detected  by  internal  evi- 
dence ...  by  inconsistencies,  anachronisms,  imitations  of 
subsequent  writers,  and  other  marks  of  recent  composition." 
— Bain's  Logic. 

In  order  to  hide  the  real  fact  of  the  Identity  of 
the  Son  of  Man  of  the  New  Testament  with  the 
Bar  Gi'ora  of  actual  history,  the  era  of  his  activity 
has  been  thrown  back  in  the  sacred  books  forty 
years  earlier  than  the  time  given  in  the  works  of 
profane  writers. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  state  that  religious 
falsification  was  not  considered  a  grave  sin  in  the 
first  and  second  centuries  of  our  era.  On  the 
contrary,  looking  at  the  vast  number  of  false  Gos- 
pels and  false  Epistles  that  were  published  in  that 
period  of  the  luxuriant  growth  of  pseudographic 
writings,  the  falsification  of  religious  history  ap- 
pears to  have  been  looked  upon  by  the  greatest 
of  religious  writers  as  a  cardinal  virtue.  Even 
the  writer  of  the  canonical  Pauline  Epistles 
boasted  (II  Cor.  12:16)  that  "being  crafty,  I 
caught  you  with  guile."  The  writer  of  Romans 
3 :  7,  was  not  the  only  author  of  religious  litera- 
236 


EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHRONOLOGY      237 

ture  who  believed  in  his  heart  that  "  the  truth  of 
God  hath  more  abounded  through  my  lie  unto  his 
glory."  It  was  generally  thought  that  exaggera- 
tion and  alteration  of  statements  of  fact  were  not 
only  permissible,  but  most  virtuous  acts  if  only, 
what  the  authoi's  thereof  sincerely  believed  to  be 
the  truth  of  God,  should  be  made  thereby  more 
abundant.  What  today  appears  to  us  as  shame- 
less intei'polations  of  profane  writers  made  to  es- 
tablish an  earlier  date  for  Christian  origins  than 
in  fact  they  possessed,  were  acts  of  the  loftiest 
piet}',  in  those  days  when,  as  has  been  said,  "  faith 
was  more  vivid  than  good-faith." 

The  simple-minded  Christian  believes  that  there 
is  a  continuous  thread  of  thought  in  the  Bible  from 
Genesis  to  Revelation,  every  statement  absolutely 
true,  no  thought  contradictory  of  another.  He 
is  unable  to  perceive  the  antinomian  doctrine  of 
the  Pauline  Epistles  attacked  in  the  so-called 
Epistles  of  Peter  and  James.  The  thought  that 
the  "  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  "  is  designated  as  a 
"  vain  man  "  in  the  Epistle  ascribed  to  the  "  Apos- 
tle James  "  would  startle  him.  If  he  would  read 
the  Epistles  with  average  thoughtfulness,  he  could 
not  fail  to  notice  the  conflict  that  existed  between 
the  "  disciples  of  the  circumcision  "  and  those  "  of 
the  uncircumcision  " ;  and  he  would  not  blindly 
pass  over  the  boast  of  the  thirteenth  "  Apostle  " 
that  he  had  xvithstood  "  the  chiefest  of  the  Apos- 
tles "  called  by  the  Son  of  Man  himself.  The  ab- 
solute contradiction  between  the  two  genealogies 


238  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

of  the  Son  of  Man,  the  two  different  accounts  of 
the  death  of  "  the  Judas,"  the  three  different 
stories  of  the  Conversion  of  Saul  as  related  in  the 
Acts  and  Pauline  Epistles,  and  the  two  sources  of 
"  the  dying  words  "  of  the  Son  of  Man  (Jo.  19: 
30;  Rev.  16:  17),  will  be  smoothed  over  for  him  by 
expositors  and  reconcilers,  the  pre-  and  post- 
Hegel  Hegelians,  so  agile  in  the  demonstration  of 
the  identity  of  opposites. 

Yet  the  almost  endless  contradictions  in  detail 
of  the  canonical  Scriptures,  the  truth  of  which, 
nevertheless,  in  every  line  is  vouched  for  by  the 
Christian  Church,  are  as  naught  to  the  so-called 
Apocryphal  Scriptures,  which  in  the  early  ages 
of  the  Church  were  almost  without  number.  Of 
the  one  hundred  and  six  Gospels  mentioned  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  early  Church,  forty-one  still  sur- 
vive in  whole  or  in  part.  All  purported  to  be 
inspired,  and,  therefore,  inerrant;  and  most  of 
them  have  been  so  accepted  at  one  time  or  another 
by  the  whole  or  part  of  the  Church. 

What  various  and  contradictory  readings  may 
be  found  in  the  many  and  varied  manuscripts  of 
each  of  these  holy  books  can  only  be  conjectured 
in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  in  the  Greek  manu- 
scripts examined  by  the  English  and  American 
Revisers  of  the  New  Testament  —  only  a  small 
fraction  of  the  Christian  hagiographa  —  150,000 
different  readings,  or  variations  of  the  text  were 
found.  When  one  considers  that  in  the  entire 
accepted  Greek  text  of  the  New  Testament,  count- 


EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHRONOLOGY      239 

ing  articles  and  particles,  there  are  about  140,000 
words,  he  can  best  appreciate  the  proportion  of 
the  disputed  readings  to  all  the  words  in  the  book 
—  more  than  one  variant  for  every  single  word  in 
the  Greek  text.  He  can  also  better  understand 
the  crying  need  for  divine  guidance  in  getting  at 
the  truths  of  religion  in  all  of  that  vast  mass  of 
Christian  documents.  In  the  wonderful  oppor- 
tunity thus  afforded  for  private  interpretation  of 
the  Scriptures  one  can  not  fail  to  observe  the  ease 
with  which  the  impious  may  attribute  utter  in- 
difference to  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  and  the  facility 
with  which  the  learned  and  stable,  no  less  than  the 
unlearned  and  unstable,  may  wrest  them  to  their 
own  confusion. 

Since  so  much  zeal  has  been  manifested  by  really 
sincere  pseudographers  in  making  the  truths  of 
God  abound  so  abundantly,  can  any  one  believe 
religious  writers  actuated  by  such  ideas  quite  in- 
capable of  moving  back  the  hands  of  the  clock  of 
time  the  short  space  of  forty  years.?  Certainly  no 
one  can  who  is  familiar  with  the  results  of  Old 
Testament  criticism  which  now  places  in  the  fifth 
century  before  our  era  the  composition  of  sacred 
Scriptures  which  purport  to  have  been  written  a 
thousand  years  earlier  than  that  date. 

And  again,  the  writers  of  these  Christian  docu- 
ments were  akin  and  contemporary  with  Talmudic 
scribes,  not  a  whit  less  lacking  in  religious  zeal 
and  sincerity,  who  find  little  difficulty  in  making 
contemporaries  of  Joshua  Ben  Perachia  and  Rabbi 


240  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Akiba,  whom  less  zealous  chroniclers  place  nearly 
three  centuries  apart. 

Now  the  Pauline  Epistles  are  said  to  antedate 
the  Gospels  because  it  was  thought  piously  ex- 
pedient to  credit  their  authorship  to  one  who  is 
supposed  to  have  died  four  years  before  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem,  though  Hebrews  13 :  14, 
shows  that  the  author  of  that  Epistle  lived  some 
time  after  the  city  was  overthrown. 

The  Gospels  themselves,  by  words  they  have  put 
into  the  mouth  of  the  Son  of  Man,  show  they 
were  not  only  written  after  the  destruction  of  the 
Holy  City,  but  the  Son  of  Man  lived  to  mourn  the 
city  left  desolate  by  its  unrelenting  conqueror. 

Although  it  is  generally  believed  the  Pauline 
Epistles  ante-date  the  Gospels,  an  examination 
will  disclose  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Epistles  is  a  later  and  more  developed  form  of 
Christianity  than  that  found  in  the  Gospels  and 
the  Acts. 

We  have  shown  before  that  the  Greek  article, 
which  almost  invariably  precedes  the  word  lesous 
in  the  Gospels,  is  never  found  before  it  in  the 
Epistles,  the  Apocalypse,  or  the  Birth  Stories, 
The  disappearance  of  the  article  shows  the  process 
by  which  the  title  of  "  the  Liberator,"  "  the 
lesous,"  integrated  into  a  name,  that  is  to  say,  by 
much  the  same  process  as  "  the  carpenter,"  in  an 
English  village,  integrated  into  the  family  name 
of  "  Carpenter." 

When  Mark  was  written,  the  doctrine  of  the 


EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHRONOLOGY      241 

Ascension  had  not  been  evolved,  for  all  after  the 
eighth  verse  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Mark  is 
not  found  in  the  earliest  manuscripts. 

Matthew,  which  is  later  than  the  Mark  Gospel, 
knows  nothing  whatever  of  the  Ascension  dogma. 

The  last  four  verses  of  the  common  text  of  Luke, 
in  wliich  the  stupendous  miracle  is  meagcrlj  re- 
lated, are  not  found  in  the  Sinaitic  or  oldest  text 
of  that  Gospel. 

Even  the  John,  the  latest  of  all  the  Gospels, 
gives  no  report  of  the  Ascension. 

Yet  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
(10:6),  and  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  (4: 
8,  9  and  10),  expressly  enunciates  the  doctrine, 
and  the  writer  of  I  Thessalonians  4 :  17,  relates  his 
belief  in  the  Second  Coming,  the  descent  from 
heaven  of  the  Son  of  Man  to  take  up  with  him 
Paul,  "  who  is  alive,"  and  all  the  other  believers, 
who  were  to  be  lifted  up  bodily  on  clouds,  presum- 
ably be3'ond  the  earthly  atmosphere  and  the 
farthest  stars. 

The  Epistles  exhibit  to  us  an  organized  Chris- 
tian church,  with  its  bishops,  deacons,  elders, 
presbyters,  presters  or  priests,  while  the  Gospels 
have  not  the  foreshadowing  of  such  an  organiza- 
tion. Of  course,  the  organized  is  always  subse- 
quent to  the  unorganized. 

The  Epistles  know  of  a  Gospel,  or  organized 
system  of  doctrine,  but  they  also  know  of  preach- 
ers of  that  doctrine,  an  organized  profession  or 
means   of  livelihood,   for   I   Cor.   9:14,   declares 


242  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

"  they  who  preach  the  Gospel  should  get  their  liv- 
ing out  of  the  Gospel  preaching." 

The  Gospels  know  of  no  separation  between 
Church  and  Synagogue,  but  the  Epistles  not  only 
recognize  such  a  distinction  but  they  provide,  in 
order  to  distinguish  the  Church  from  the  Syna- 
gogue, that  the  day  of  public  worship  be  changed 
from  the  seventh  to  the  first  day  of  the  week,  from 
the  Sabbath  to  the  "  Lord's  Day  " ;  that,  in  church 
women  keep  their  heads  covered  and  men  bare  their 
heads,  reversing  the  custom  in  vogue  among  ortho- 
dox Jews  that  persists  even  to  this  day. 

Some  modern  Docetists  lay  much  store  by  the 
fact  that  the  Pauline  Epistles  are  so  lacking  in 
biographical  detail  regarding  the  life  of  the  Son 
of  Man.  But  they  ignore  the  fact  that  the  sphere 
of  the  Epistles  is  the  exposition  of  doctrine,  the 
teaching  of  the  Gospel.  They  are  not  biograph- 
ical sketches  of  the  Son  of  Man  like  the  Gospels, 
taken  up  with  episodes  and  incidents  of  his  daily 
life.  What  is  true  in  this  regard  of  the  Pauline 
Epistles  is  equally  true  of  all  the  other  Epistles 
of  the  New  Testament.  A  book  of  essays  must 
not  be  expected  to  be  a  book  of  biography. 

One  of  the  few  concrete  assertions  by  which  any 
date  may  be  fixed  in  the  Pauline  Epistles  is  the 
reference  to  Paul's  or  Saul's  escape  from  Damas- 
cus, in  II  Corinthians  11 :  33:  "  through  a  window 
in  a  basket  I  was  let  down  by  the  wall,"  in  the 
days  of  Aretas'  authority.  While  Paul  does  not 
say  he  was  preaching  at  that  time  the  Gospel  of  the 


EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHRONOLOGY      243 

Crucified,  yet  such  may  be  erroneously  inferred. 
Josephus,  in  Wars  II,  20:  1,  tells  of  the  hasty  exit 
of  Saul  from  Damascus,  omitting  mention  of  the 
basket,  on  the  day  before  a  slaughter  of  10,000 
Jews  was  made  by  the  Damascenes.  Saul,  with 
Philip  —  perhaps  the  Philip  of  the  Epistles  and 
Acts  —  went  to  Cestius,  the  Roman  general,  who 
had  been  previously  driven  out  of  Jerusalem  by 
Eleazar  (that  is  "  the  Rock,")  the  son  of  Simon 
Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man. 

The  reference  to  "genealogies,"  in  I  Timothy 
1  :  4,  and  Titus  3 :  9,  would  appear  to  point  to  the 
genealogies  in  Matthew  and  Luke,  and,  therefore, 
place  these  Epistles  subsequent  to  the  Gospels. 

There  can  be  little  doubt,  however,  that  He- 
brews 13:14,  was  written  after  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  for  it  says,  "  For  here  no  city  is  left 
standing  [^menousanl,  but  we  seek  one  to  come 
Imellousanl ."  The  "  one  to  come  "  is,  no  doubt, 
the  "  heavenly  Jerusalem  "  referred  to  in  Hebrews 
12:22,  the  hope  for  which  the  only  thing  left  in 
the  desolate  heart  of  the  patriotic  Jew  after  Titus, 
the  "  abomination  that  makes  desolate,"  had  laid 
waste  the  earthly  Jerusalem,  and  Rufus  had  driven 
a  plow  over  the  ruins  of  the  temple  and  the  Holy 
City. 

In  order  to  give  credence  to  the  uncharitable 
legend  which,  in  the  popular  mind,  has  made 
Herod's  name  a  synonym  for  cruelty.  Christian 
chronologists  have  found  it  necessary  to  move  back 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era  at  least  four 


244?  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

years  beyond  the  traditional  time  of  reckoning. 
That  is  to  say,  the  Son  of  Man's  birth  they  fix  at 
4  B,  C.  E.  But,  as  they  say  he  was  33  years 
old  at  the  time  of  his  death,  they  place  that  event 
in  29  C.  E.  According  to  Luke,  Herod  Antipas 
thought  the  Son  of  Man  was  John  the  Baptist 
redivizms.  This  would  place  the  Baptist's  death 
prior  to  29  C.  E.  But  according  to  Luke  3 :  19, 
John  the  Baptist  met  his  death  because  he  re- 
proved Herod,  the  tetrarch,  for  taking  to  himself 
"  Herodias,  his  brother  Philip's  wife." 

But  this  scandal  did  not  occur  (See  Josephus, 
Antiquities,  XVIII,  4  and  5)  until  the  twentieth 
year  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius  or  C.  E.  34,  five 
years  after  the  commonly  accepted  date  of  the 
"  crucifixion." 

Moreover,  according  to  Josephus,  Herodias  was 
not  the  wife  of  Philip,  who  died  that  very  year, 
but  the  wife  of  another  Herod,  her  uncle,  who  was 
"  son  of  the  high  priest  Simon's  daughter."  It 
was  Salome,  daughter  of  Herodias,  and  not  He- 
rodias herself,  who  had  been  the  wife  of  Philip, 
and  at  the  time  of  the  scandalous  escapade,  Salome 
was  not  an  immature  "  damsel  "  (Greek,  Korasion, 
a  little  girl,  diminutive  of  kore,  a  girl,  a  maiden), 
but  a  mature  widow, —  and,  moreover,  the  grand- 
niece  of  Philip. 

The  Talmudic  writers,  whose  shallow  sense  of 
chronology,  has  been  more  than  once  herein  noted, 
were  peculiarly  gifted  in  the  art  of  synchroniza- 


EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHRONOLOGY      24-5 

tion.  They  shared  their  gift  with  their  brethren, 
the  Gospel  writers,  also. 

Luke  makes  Lysanias,  tetrarch  of  Abilene,  "  in 
the  fifteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Tiberias  Caesar," 
i.  e.,  28  C.  E.,  although  Lysanias  was  put  to  death 
by  Mark  Anthony  34  B.  C.  E.,  and  his  tetrarchate 
given  to  Herod  the  Great  by  Augustus,  22  B.  C.  E. 

This  is  the  Herod  who,  though  he  died  4  B.  C.  E., 
is  accused  by  Matthew  with  ordering  an  illegal  and 
horrible  massacre  of  infants,  in  order  to  destroy 
the  infant  Son  of  Man,  an  episode  nowhere  else 
in  all  history  corroborated.  This  is  the  Herod 
who,  according  to  Josephus,  Wars  I,  33 :  4  and  5, 
died  the  horrible  death  which  Acts  12:  23,  records 
of  his  grandson,  Agrippa  1. 

Acts  5  makes  Theudas,  the  insurgent,  prior 
to  Judas,  the  Galilean,  although  Judas  preceded 
Theudas  two  generations. 

According  to  Luke  the  Son  of  Man  was  born 
when  Quirinius,  or  Cyrenius,  who  was  governor  of 
Syria,  took  the  census  of  that  province  eleven 
years  after  the  death  of  Herod  the  Great,  who 
died  A.  U.  C.  750.  Judea  did  not  become  a  Ro- 
man province  during  the  lifetime  of  Herod  the 
Great,  the  only  "  Herod  the  King."  It  was  not 
a  kingdom  and  a  province  at  the  same  time.  But 
if  the  Son  of  Man  was  bom  when  Quirinus  was 
making  the  enrollment,  A.  U.  C.  761,  he  would  be 
in  A.  U.  C.  768,  when  Tiberius  began  to  reign, 
seven  years  of  age.     But  Luke  says  in  Chapter  3 


246  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

that,  in  the  fifteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius, 
A.  U.  C.  783  —  that  is,  29  C.  E.,  the  Son  of  Man 
began  to  be  about  thirty  years  of  age,  a  variation 
of  eight  years  from  the  date  given  by  Luke  in  the 
previous  chapter. 

Rehgious  reconcilers,  with  an  admirable  agility, 
have  as  little  difficulty  reconciling  these  discrep- 
ancies as  they  have  in  proving  the  exact  identity 
between  the  genealogical  tables  in  Luke  and  Mat- 
thew, as,  with  a  cleverness  worthy  of  an  Augustus 
De  Morgan,  they  prove  that  thirteen  is  fourteen, 
when  Matthew  declares  there  were  fourteen  gene- 
rations "  from  David  until  the  carrying  away  into 
Babylon,"  but  Luke  enumerates  only  thirteen. 
This  is  done  by  the  reconcilers'  usual  process  of 
reduplication,  David  in  this  instance  being  the  in- 
dividual reproduced. 

In  Matthew  23 :  38,  we  find  these  words  at- 
tributed to  the  Son  of  Man :  "  Behold,  your  house 
is  left  unto  you  desolate."  This  was,  unquestion- 
ably, a  reference  to  the  destruction  of  the  Temple 
of  Jerusalem,  the  "  Holy  House,"  an  event  which 
occurred  in  the  year  70  of  our  era,  and  this  state- 
ment forms  a  strong  argument  in  proof  of  the  fact 
that  the  Son  of  Man  survived  the  destruction  of 
the  Temple  and  the  Holy  City,  as  Josephus  as- 
serts, and  as  has  been  demonstrated  herein. 

Strongly  corroborative  of  this  also  are  the  words 
of  the  Son  of  Man  quoted  by  Matthew  (23:29- 
35)  :  "  Woe  unto  you  Scribes  and  Pharisees, 
hypocrites !  .  .  .  upon    you    will    come    all    the 


EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHRONOLOGY      247 

righteous  blood  shed  upon  earth  from  the  blood 
of  the  righteous  Abel  unto  the  blood  of  Zacharias 
son  of  Barachias  whom  ye  slew  between  the  temple 
and  the  altar." 

According  to  Josephus,  this  brutal  murder  took 
place  shortly  before  the  destruction  of  the  city, 
about  68  C.  E.,  and  the  person  who  spoke  of  it 
must  have  been  alive  at  least  as  late  as  the  year 
68.  Greater  credence  can  be  given  to  this  date 
than  surely  can  be  given  the  dates  in  the  birth 
legends  ^vhich  are  much  later  than  the  composition 
of  the  main  portions  of  the  Gospel  narratives. 

The  High  Priest  Annas  before  whom  the  Luke 
and  the  John  sa}'^  the  Son  of  INIan  was  taken, 
could  not  have  been  the  Ananas  mentioned  by  Jo- 
sephus, though  it  is  generalW  assumed  that  he  was. 
Ananas  was  deposed  from  the  High  Priesthood 
fifteen  years  before  the  earliest  date  that  can  be 
given  for  the  trial  of  the  Son  of  Man,  according  to 
the  New  Testament  narratives.  Ananas  was  High 
Priest  from  the  seventh  to  the  fourteenth  of  the 
Christian  era,  and  to  make  him  high  priest  in  the 
year  29,  a  decade  and  a  half  after  his  humiliating 
expulsion  from  that  high  office,  would  be  a  gross 
error  in  chronology  only  paralleled  by  a  writer  of 
the  present  day  who  might  name  James  K.  Polk 
as  president  of  the  United  States  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War.  Such  a  blunder  would  be  utterly 
unpardonable  in  any  composition  written  half  a 
century  —  even  a  century  —  after  the  date  in- 
tended to  be  recorded,  and  could  not  have  been 


248  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

made,  except  through  deliberate  intent  to  deceive, 
by  any  one  who  had  been  contemporary  with  the 
event. 

The  law-reverencing  Roman,  with  his  deep  de- 
votion to  legal  form  as  such,  could  not  tolerate  a 
hated  Jew  usurping  the  functions  of  the  highest 
office  in  the  conquered  state  from  which  the  humil- 
iated Hebrew  had  been  ignominiously  deposed. 
Moreover,  it  is  not  in  human  nature  to  expect  that 
a  warm  fi'iendship  could  burn  in  the  heart  of 
Ananas  for  the  man  who  had  obtained  by  question- 
able means  the  supreme  dignity,  the  veritable  king- 
ship of  his  country  from  which  Ananas  and  his 
family  had  been  ejected  to  make  room  for  an  un- 
scrupulous usurper  with  bribes  in  his  hands. 

It  ought  to  be  plain,  therefore,  that  the  Ananas 
of  profane  history  could  not  have  been  the  Annas 
of  the  later  Gospels.  The  spelling  of  "  Annas," 
for  "  Ananas,"  would  indicate  a  state  of  ignorance 
utterly  unpardonable  in  such  a  diligent  student  of 
Josephus  as  Krenkel  and  others  have  demonstrated 
the  writer  of  the  Luke  to  have  been. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  oldest  and  most  re- 
liable of  the  Gospels,  the  Mark,  does  not  mention 
the  name  of  the  High  Priest  who  tried  the  Son  of 
Man.  The  Matthew  makes  no  mention  of  Annas 
at  all,  but  gives  Caiaphas,  or  more  correctly, 
Kaiapha,  as  the  name  of  the  High  Priest  who  pre- 
sided at  the  trial. 

The  Luke  names  Annas  and  Kaiapha  as  High 
Priests,  though  only  one  person  at  a  time  could  be 


EARLY  CHRISTIAN  CHRONOLOGY     249 

High  Priest,  or  king,  as  he  was  in  reality  in  the 
Judean  theocracy. 

The  Talmud  knows  no  such  man  as  Kalapha, 
and  nowhere  in  Hebrew  literature  is  there  such 
a  name  as  Kaiapha  to  be  found.  Josephus  names 
the  High  Priest  of  the  period  as  Joseph,  though 
the  Gospels  do  not  know  any  High  Priest  of  that 
name.  A  pious  hand,  perhaps  the  same  hand  that 
has  inserted  the  term  "  Dorkas  "  referred  to  else- 
where, has  added  the  words  ton  kai  Kaiaphan  in 
one  instance  and  ho  kai  Kaiaphas  in  another,  to 
the  text  of  Josephus  (Antiquities  XVIII,  2:2  and 
XVIII,  4:3)  "  Josepos,  the  also  Kaiaphas,"  is  the 
unusual  way  the  name  appears  in  the  text. 

The  High  Priest,  or  Pontifex  Maximus,  before 
whom  the  Son  of  Man  was  led,  was  certainly  not 
Ananas,  as  time  and  orthography  demonstrate. 
The  Annas,  or  Anas,  was  rather,  one  Vespasi- 
Anus  (Greek,  Ouespasi-Anos)  the  High  Priest,  or 
Pontifex  Maximus,  of  Rome. 

The  phrase  in  Josephus,  kai  Kaiaphas,  copied 
into  his  text  out  of  the  Luke  gospel,  indicates 
there  has  been  a  reduplication  of  the  kai,  which  a 
diligent  copyist,  in  his  unspaced  manuscript  let- 
tering has  incorporated  into  the  succeeding  word, 
ha-phh,  in  Aramaic,  which  means  "  the  viceroy." 
The  viceroy  to  whom  the  Son  of  Man  was  sent, 
was  none  other  than  Titus,  who  was  the  son  and 
not  the  son-in-law  of  the  High  Priest,  as  the  John, 
with  his  customary  incorrectness,  relates.  Ves- 
pasi-Anus  it  was  who,  as  the  John  says,  "  was," 


250  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

or  became,  "  High  Priest  that  year,"  namely  the 
first  year  of  his  reign  as  Emperor  and  Pontifex 
Maximus  of  Rome.^ 

Suetonius  relates  that  Vespasian  was  overcome 
with  fatigue  from  the  strain  and  excitement  of  the 
triumphal  celebration.  The  unfinished  duties  of 
the  occasion  devolved,  of  course,  upon  his  beloved 
son,  Titus,  as  a  vice-emperor,  or  viceroy,  in  whose 
judgment  Vespasian  had  always  complete  and  ab- 
solute faith  and  who  was  more  familiar  with  the 
acts  and  deeds  of  the  Son  of  Man  than  was  any 
other  citizen  of  Rome. 

1  Thus,  the  phrase  annas  kai  kai-apha  in  the  Luke  (3:2) 
likely  originated  from  annas  kai  ha  phah,  that  is,  "  anos 
[or  Vespasianos]  and  the  viceroy,  [Titus]"  —  the  emperor 
and  the  caesar  of  Rome. 


XXX 

FROM  CRYPTICISM  TO  CRITICISM 

The  purpose  of  all  our  translations  of  the  Scriptures  is 
to  make  of  these  writings  a  sacred  book.  The  translations 
thus  show  the  effect  of  this  deliberate  design.  No  accurate 
result  can  be  attained  when  such  is  the  method.  We  get 
only  a  religious  meaning  when  very  often  there  is  a  dupli- 
cate and  opposite  meaning  in  the  same  story;  a  practice 
which  is  the  wit  of  Oriental  story-telling. —  Grethenbach. 

Gibbon  in  chapter  16  of  this  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  Roman  Empire  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
it  was  a  habit  of  the  Jews  to  allude  to  Rome  by  a 
cryptic  name.  He  notes  that  Rome  is  referred  to 
as  Edom  ^  in  the  Talmud.  He  says  of  the  Jewish 
writers  "  They  pronounced  secret  and  ambiguous 
imprecations  against  the  haughty  kingdom  of 
Edom."  Dean  Milman,  in  his  note  on  this  matter, 
says :  "  It  may  be  worth  considering  whether 
many  of  the  stories  in  the  Talmud  are  not  history 

i  Edom  is  of  the  same  root  as  Adam,  and  literally  means 
"  red."  The  adjective  masculine  singular  of  "  red  "  is  ade- 
moni,  or  e-demoni,  a  term  they  deemed  doubly  fitting  when 
applied  to  the  bloody  Rufus  and  his  red-handed  Romans, 
the  Edomites  of  crj'pticism.  So,  the  custom  of  "  casting  out 
demons,"  utterly  unknown  in  Old  Testament  writings,  even 
in  those  books  of  the  Apocrypha  that  are  almost  con- 
temporaneous with  the  New  Testament  scriptures,  did  not 
become  a  common  practice  until  the  desire  of  "  casting 
out "  Romans  became  a  national  policy  of  the  Jews,  and 
the  war  of  liberation  was  begun. 

251 


252  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

in  a  figurative  disguise  adopted  from  prudence. 
The  Jews  might  dare  say  things  of  Rome  under  the 
significant  appellation  of  Edom  which  they  feared 
to  utter  publicly.  Later  and  more  ignorant  ages 
took  literally,  and  perhaps  embellished,  what  was 
intelligible  among  the  generation  to  which  it  was 
addressed."  It  is  unfortunate  that  this  thought 
about  the  Talmud  did  not  occur  to  the  learned 
Dean  in  connection  with  the  New  Testament. 
With  how  much  more  truth  could  he  have  said: 
"  It  may  be  worth  considering  whether  many  of 
the  stories  in  the  New  Testament  are  not  history  in 
a  figurative  disguise  adopted  from  prudence !  " 

As  in  the  Apocalypse  Babylon  is  the  cryptic 
name  for  Rome,  and  by  the  strategy  of  adopting 
this  cryptic  name  the  writer  was  enabled  to  heap 
up  with  impunity  his  execrations  upon  the  anni- 
hilators  of  his  nation,  so,  in  the  early  Gospels, 
the  whole  scenery  of  the  tragedy  that  was  enacted 
in  Rome  is  painted  in  the  landscape  of  Palestine. 

The  Romans,  like  every  ancient  or  modern  peo- 
ple believing  themselves  heaven's  specially  chosen 
race,  blinded  by  their  national  egotism,  could  see 
no  wrong  in  their  own  unjust  and  inhuman  acts, 
3'et  they  could  readily  perceive  the  full  enormity 
of  their  real  deeds  when  attributed  to  an  alien  and 
a  hated  nation.  The  Nathans  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment knew  how  to  bring  the  Davids  of  their  day 
to  a  consciousness  of  sin,  if  not  to  a  knowledge  of 
the  identity  of  the  sinner.  The  latest  Evangelist 
appears   to  have  accepted  the  statements   of  his 


FROM  CRYPTICISM  TO  CRITICISM      253 

predecessors,  not  in  the  cryptic,  but  in  their  literal 
sense,  and  by  fostering  the  prejudices  of  the  Ro- 
mans against  the  Jews,  who,  by  that  time,  were 
given  up  as  hopeless  of  conversion,  sought  to  win 
souls  from  paganism  to  the  new  revelation.  Thus 
a  great  wrong  was  wrought  against  the  Jewish 
race,  and  this  injury  has  been  intensified  by  the 
reprisals  made  with  the  poison  gases  of  the  Tal- 
mud, which  have  produced  only  lesions  of  hate. 

There  is  a  story  —  apocryphal,  let  us  hope  — 
of  a  certain  lawyer  for  the  defense,  who,  having 
listened  to  the  false  statements  of  manufactured 
witnesses  called  by  the  plaintiff,  instead  of  expos- 
ing or  refuting  the  testimony  of  his  opponent,  went 
him  several  points  better  by  suborning  witnesses 
of  his  own,  unknown  to  his  client,  who  by  their 
greater  expertness  in  perjury,  won  the  case  for 
the  defendant,  the  really  guiltless  and  deserving 
man  in  the  case.  So,  the  Talmudists,  lacking  the 
analytical  faculty  to  dissect  the  statements  of  the 
Gospels,  first  in  their  cryptic  and  subsequently  in 
their  unconsciously  perverted  sense,  merely  demur 
to  them,  depending  upon  the  black  pall  of  calumny 
to  cover  and  bury  a  record,  which,  if  properly 
analyzed  and  understood,  would  be  the  greatest 
glory  of  their  ancient  race. 

Saulus,  who  Romanized  himself  into  Paulus,  a 
Jew  of  the  Dispersion  who  yet  boasted  of  his  Ro- 
man citizenship,  an  integral  element  of  the  power 
that  destroyed  his  nation  and  dispersed  his  peo- 
ple,  a  Jew  who   de-Judaized  the  rites   and  ordi- 


254.  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

nances,  even  the  very  essential  doctrines  of  his 
racial  religion,  devoted  his  whole  genius  to  differ- 
entiating Christianity  from  Judaism,  a  religion  so 
intensely  hated  by  the  Roman  world.  And,  in  or- 
der to  make  the  new  religion  appealing  to  the  Gen- 
tile peoples,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  concealing  the 
real  identity  of  the  central  figure  of  Christianity, 
the  very  arch-enemy  of  despotic  Roman  power. 

In  his  Epistles  he  mentions  few  Jewish  names, 
but  by  the  clever  artifice  of  sending  greetings,  he 
catalogues  long  lists  of  Greek  and  Roman  names, 
when  he  wishes  to  show  by  implication  the  racial 
complexion  of  his  associates.  That  the  Epistles 
were  ever  sent  to  the  peoples  to  whom  they  were 
addressed,  or  that  he  ever  visited  the  places  he 
writes  about,  is  more  than  questionable.  As  the 
itinerary  given  him  in  the  Acts  has  been  shown  to 
have  been  borrowed  from  Josephus,  so  likewise, 
from  the  same  source  does  he  secure  names  for  the 
personalities  of  his  Epistles  and  Acts.  We  find  he 
has  naturalized  not  only  Dorcas,  Andronicus, 
Apollos,  Cornelius,  Dionysius,  Drusilla,  Gains, 
Jason,  Lucius,  Lysias,  Marcus,  Nicanor,  Niger, 
Philip,  Publius,  Pudens,  Silas,  Stephanas,  Timo- 
theus,  Hermas,  Hermes,  Julia,  Nereus,  Olympias, 
Aquila,  Prisca,  Priscilla,  Claudia,  Theophilus,  but 
even  Josephus'  imaginary  friend  Epaphroditus, 
to  whom  the  historian  addressed  his  Contra 
Apionem,  as  also  Aristobulus,  Rufus  and  even 
Titus.  Could  anything  be  more  convincing  to  the 
Goim  of  the  extreme  non-Judaic  character  of  the 


FROM  CRYPTICISM  TO  CRITICISM      255 

new  religion  than  that  it  numbered  among  its  ad- 
herents not  only  Rufus,  but  a  very  Titus,  indeed? 
Thus,  "  pressed  down,  shaken  together  and  running 
over,"  he  filled  up  the  full  measure  of  his  Judaic 
national  surrender. 


XXXI 

THE   STORY  OF  THE   COINS 

If  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  abound  in 
cryptic  allusions,  there  is  nothing  cryptic  in  the 
short  and  simple  story  stamped  upon  the  extant 
Jewish  coins. 

The  study  of  Jewish  numismatics  throws  much 
light  upon  the  personality  of  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora 
and  his  relations  with  Eleazar  and  John  during  the 
siege  of  the  Holy  City. 

Far  from  corroborating  Josephus  the  extant 
coins  help  to  correct  some  of  the  wilful  misstate- 
ments of  the  traitor.  Josephus  loses  no  oppor- 
tunity of  belittling  the  character  of  the  great 
patriot.  However,  the  coins  bespeak  the  prepon- 
derating part  played  in  Jewish  history  by  the  Son 
of  Man.  Of  the  36  coins  of  the  period  of  the  great 
revolt  illustrated  in  Madden's  History  of  Jewish 
Coinage,  29  bear  the  name  of  Simon.  In  so  great 
a  veneration  was  he  held  by  his  compatriots,  even 
in  their  defeat,  that  during  the  reigns  of  Titus, 
Domitian,  Trajan  and  Hadrian  his  fellow  coun- 
trymen continued  to  strike  coins  bearing  his  em- 
blems and  his  venerated  name  —  often  struck  over 
the  very   coins   of  the   hated  Roman   conqueror. 

For  a  hundred  years  after  his  execution  by  the 
256 


THE   STORY  OF  THE   COINS       257 

Romans  the  Jews  minted  coins  with  the  same  in- 
scription and  symbols  —  with  almost  the  very  dies 
of  the  days  of  the  siege. 

The  prevailing  form  is  the  figure  of  a  seven- 
branched  date  tree,  with  the  name  "  Simon  "  struck 
on  the  obverse,  and  a  three-bunch  cluster  of 
grapes,  or  a  similarly  shaped  tripartite  vine  leaf  on 
the  reverse,  with  the  words  "  First,"  "  Second  "  or 
"  Third  Year  of  the  Deliverance  of  Israel."  The 
palm  or  date  tree  appears  to  have  been  the  recog- 
nized symbol  for  Israel,  for  we  find  it  even  on  the 
Roman  coins  speciall}^  stamped  by  the  conqueror 
to  commemorate  the  defeat  of  the  Jews. 

These  coins  contradict  Josephus  in  many  points 
of  his  traitorous  history.  According  to  Josephus, 
Simon  Bar  Gi'ora  did  not  enter  Jerusalem  until 
the  third  year  of  the  war,  yet  we  possess  coins 
issued  by  Simon  which  bear  the  inscriptions, 
"  Second,"  and  even  "  First  year  of  the  Deliver- 
ance of  Israel." 

Josephus  declares  there  was  a  bitter  enmity  ex- 
isting between  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  Eleazar  Son  of 


Coin  of  Eleazar  and  Simon  Son  of  Man.     67  C.  E. 

(a)  Eleazar    Hakohen.     "  Eleazar    the    Priest."     Pitcher 
and  palm-branch. 

(b)  Shimeon.     "  Simon.'*     Wreath. 


258  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Simon,  and  John,  the  three  princes  of  the  Jews 
during  the  siege.  Yet,  we  have  one  silver  coin 
bearing  the  name  of  Eleazar  on  the  obverse  and 
that  of  Simon  on  the  reverse.  This  can  only  prove 
that  Simon  and  Eleazar  acted  conjointly  even  to 
the  extent  of  minting  coins  in  common. 

There  is  also  a  copper  coin  bearing  the  figures 
of  the  palm  tree  and  the  three-bunch  cluster  of 
grapes  —  the  very  forms  so  characteristic  of 
Simon's  coins,  which  contains  on  the  obverse  the 


Coin  of  John,  the  Boanerges.    67  C.  E. 

(a)  Shenath  Achath  lAgullath  Israel.  "First  year  of 
the  Redemption  of  Israel."     Cluster  of  grapes. 

(b)  Jehochanan.     "  John." 

inscription,  "  First  year  of  the  Redemption  of 
Israel,"  and  on  the  reverse  the  Hebrew  letters  for 
the  name  "  Jehohanan,"  or,  John. 

The  coining  of  money  is  always  the  prerogative 
of  the  sovereign  power  in  a  state.  The  extant 
coinage  issued  in  Jerusalem  during  the  siege, 
struck  from  almost  identical  dies,  shows  how  the 
sovereign  power  within  was  divided  and  mutually 
recognized.  Of  course,  the  number  of  extant 
coins  bearing  the  name  of  Simon  far  outnumber 
those  of  his  coadjutors  in  power,  Eleazar  and 
John,  and  in  proportion  as  they  do  so  they  show 


THE   STORY  OF  THE   COINS      259 


Coin  of  Eleazar,  the  Peter,  Treasurer  of  the  Temple.     67 
C.  E. 

(a)  Eleazar  Hakohen.  "  Eleazar  the  Priest."  Pitcher 
and  palm-branch. 

(b)  Shenath  Achath  Ligullath  Israel.  "First  year  of 
the  Redemption  of  Israel."     Cluster  of  grapes. 

the  relative  influence  of  each  on  the  government 
of  the  state  and  how  the  sovereign  power  eventu- 
ally became  vested  in  the  greatest  of  the  three. 

In  this  regard  a  singular  thing  is  forced  upon 
the  attention  of  one  who  examines  those  ancient 
coins.  It  is  the  figure  on  some  of  the  coins  of  a 
three  stringed  lyre,  evidently  intended  as  a  symbol 
of  the  harmony  that  existed  between  the  three 
brave  leaders,  who  could  not,  without  mutual  har- 


(a)  Shimeon.     "Simon."     Three-stringed    lyre. 

(b)  lerusalem.     "Jerusalem."     Palm-6ra»c/i  and  wreath. 

mony,  have  held  their  Holy  City  for  three  long 
years  against  the  greatest  armies  of  the  ancient 


SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

world.  The  representation  of  the  seven-branched 
palm  tree,  with  three  branches  on  either  side,  with 
its  invariable  cluster  of  three  dates,  the  three- 
bunched  cluster  of  grapes,  and  the  similarly  shaped 


(a)  Shimeon  leshia  Israel.  "  Simon  Liberator  of  Israel." 
Palm-branch. 

(b)  Shenath  Achath  Ligullath  Israel.  "  First  year  of  the 
Redemption  of  Israel."     Fine-leaf. 

tripartite  vine  leaf,  one  may  feel  certain  were  not 
void  of  significance.  The  use  of  the  vine  branch 
and  the  grape  as  symbols  on  the  coins  calls  to  mind 
the  allusions  to  these  objects  that  are  scattered 
throughout  the  New  Testament,  some  of  which  will 
be  readily  recalled  by  every  person.  The  figure 
of  the  branch  is  stamped  on  the  coins,  no  doubt, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  reminding  the  people 
of  the  prophetic  words  in  Zech  6:12:  "Behold 
the  Man  l^Gibhora,  in  Aramaic]  whose  name 
[Skemol  is  Branch  [tSimohl.^^  ^ 

1  The  use  of  emblems  or  pictures  as  suggestions  of  names 
or  ideas,  on  coins  and  banners,  is  as  ancient  as  ensigns  and 
heraldry,  if  not  as  picture-writing  itself,  and  has  persisted 
through  the  ages  in  such  things  as  European  tavern  and 
inn  signs,  American  shoemakers'  signs,  voting  ballot  and 
secret  society  emblems.     They  make  an  appeal  to  the  un- 


THE   STORY  OF  THE   COINS       261 

One  of  the  copper  coins  with  the  conventional 
Simonian  symbols,  the  seven-branched  palm  tree  on 


(a)  Shimeon.    "Simon."    Cluster  of  grapes. 

(b)  Skin    Beth    {=  Shenath    Shethaim)    Lacherutk    Is*a. 
"  Second  year  of  the  Deliverance  of  Israel."     Falm-branch. 


(a)  S3I.    "Simon."    Wreath. 

(b)  Shin  Beth  Lacheruth  Is*ael.    "Second  year  of  the 
Deliverance  of  Israel."     V&lm-branch. 

one  side  and  the  vine  leaf  on  the  other,  has  the 
inscription   on   the   reverse,   "  First  year   of   the 

lettered  as  well  as  to  the  educated.  The  early  Christians 
marked  the  tombs  of  the  faithful  departed  with  the  figure 
of  a  fish  to  suggest  the  name  of  Jesus  or  Jeshua,  by  re- 
calling the  name  of  Jeshua  or  Joshua,  "  son  of  Nun " 
("fish"),  one  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  deities,  who  passed 
from  a  god  to  a  demi-god  after  Ezra  had  introduced 
Yahweh  as  the  official  national  god,  but  who  yet  retained 
sufficient  of  his  divine  potency  to  stop  the  sun.  The  prac- 
tice of  eating  no  animal  food  but  fish  on  Friday  and  during 
Lent  dates  back  to  the  times  when  the  fish  emblem  was  in 
such  general  use  among  Christians,  after  the  article  had 
been  dropped  from  the  title,  "  the  Jesus," —  his  real  name 
having  been  forgotten, —  and  the  honorable  designation  be- 
came applied  to  him  for  his  true  personal  name. 


SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

Redemption  of  Israel."  Madden  supplies  an  N 
before  the  second  word,  though  there  is  no  such 
letter  on  the  coin.  He  does  this  to  make  the  coin 
read,  Simon,  Nasi  Israel,  "  Simon,  Prince  of  Is- 
rael." It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  the  inscription 
as  it  stands  without  alteration,  might  have  been  in- 
tended for  "  Simon  Jesha  Israel,'^  "  Simon,  Savior 


(a)  Shenath    Shelosh.     "  Year    three."    Vessel    with    two 
handles  and  cover. 

(b)  Cheruth  Zion.     "  Deliverance  of  Zion."     Vine  leaf. 


(a)  Shimeon     Mashia.    "Simon      Messiah-king."     Palm- 
branch  and  wreath. 

(b)  Israel.     "  Israel."     Lyre  with  five  strings. 

of  Israel,"  or  "  Simon  the  Jesus  of  Israel."  To 
accept  Madden's  amendation  one  has  to  assume 
that  the  minter  of  the  coin  erroneously  omitted  the 
initial,  the  most  important  letter  of  the  second 
word.  This  theory  is  utterly  inadmissible.  The 
letter  n  could  not  have  worn  off  the  coin,  and,  be- 
sides, the  lad  aligns  perfectly  with  and  immedi- 


THE   STORY  OF  THE   COINS       263 

ately  precedes  the  Shin.     The  word  as  it  stands 
unquestionably  reads  Jeshia,^  and  not  Nasi. 

Orthography  was  not  a  fixed  science  with  the 
minters  of  the  coins  who  seem  to  have  no  fixed  form 
of  spelhng  for  the  word  Simon,  which  appears 
variously  as  Shimeon,  Shimon,  Shimno,  and  Shi- 
meno,  and  Jeshia,  that  is,  Jesh-ya  for  Jesh-a, 
would  not  disturb  the  conscience  of  the  coiner. 


(a)  Shimeon  Mashia  Israel.  "  Simon  Messiah-king  of  Is- 
rael."    Laurel  wreath  and  gem. 

(b)  Shenath  Achath  Ligullath  Israel.  "  First  year  of  the 
Redemption  of  Israel."     Vase  with  two  handles. 

Another  large  copper  coin,  the  inscription  on 
which  Madden  also  reads  "  Simon  Nasi  Israel,"  is 
partially  mutilated.  The  first  two  letters  of  the 
name  Simon  have  been  cut  off.  Only  part  of  the 
initial  letter  of  the  second  word  is  standing.  The 
top  of  the  initial  letter  and  the  whole  of  the  second 
letter  are  missing.  The  first  letter  may  have  been 
a  Mem  as  well  as  a  Nun,  for  in  the  Hebrew  char- 

1  The  Babylonian  Talmud  says,  "  The  schools  of  Eleazar 
ben  Jacob  pronounced  Aliph  Ayin,  and  Ay  in  Aliph." 


264*  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

acters  used  on  coins  the  bodies  of  the  Mem  and  the 
Nun  are  made  exactly  alike.  Only  the  tops  of  the 
letters  differ. 

The  last  letter  in  the  second  word  of  the  Hebrew 
inscription  is  a  He  rather  than  an  Aliph.^  The 
coin,  therefore,  appears  to  have  read  Shimeon  Ma- 
shiah  Israel,  "  Simon,  Messiah  of  Israel,"  or, 
"  Simon,  the  Anointed  [or  the  Christ]  of  Israel." 

The  figure  on  the  obverse  of  the  coin  is  a  vase, 
with  two  handles,  a  fitting  vessel  to  contain  oint- 
ment, a  proper  symbol  of  consecration,  of  the  con- 
secration of  a  king. 

The  coin  appears  to  have  been  Intentionally 
mutilated. 

1  Ginsburg,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Hebrew  Bible,  says, 
"  It  is  now  established  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  letters  lod, 
Vav,  He  and  Aliph,  commonly  called  the  quiescent  letters, 
have  been  gradually  introduced  into  the  Hebrew  text.  It 
is,  moreover,  perfectly  certain  that  the  presence  or  ab- 
sence of  these  letters  in  our  text  in  many  instances  is  en- 
tirely due  to  the  idiosyncrasy  of  the  Scribes"  (p.  136). 

The  Jewish  Talmud  says,  "  The  mystical  doctors  did  not 
distinguish  between  Cheth  and  He." 


XXXII 

CONCLUSION 

"  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  point  out  the  finger-mark 
of  Paul  in  the  Gospel;  it  has  been  often  and  well  done  by 
others.  It  is  an  established  fact  scarcely  admitting  dis- 
pute, that  to  him  it  owes  its  color,  and  that  it  reflects  his 
teaching." —  S.  Baking-Gould. 

We  believe  our  readers  will  agree  that  we  have 
amply  proven  the  thesis  with  which  we  set  out, 
namely,  that  the  Son  of  Man  was  a  real  human  be- 
ing of  flesh  and  blood,  and  not  a  myth;  that  he 
was  the  real,  historical  personage  who  essayed  to 
be  the  political  Savior  of  his  people  and  to  fulfill 
the  dream  of  all  the  prophets  of  his  race. 

He  was  a  man  of  intense  faith  in  God,  and  with 
an  undisciplined  army,  in  spite  of  factional  dis- 
sensions among  its  leaders  and  the  treason  of  a 
trusted  officer  jealous  of  his  supreme  command,  he 
wrought  the  military  miracle  of  holding  the  Holy 
City  for  three  and  a  half  years  against  the  great- 
est army  that  ever  arose  in  the  ancient  world. 

Had  Alfred,  king  of  the  Belgians,  been  able  to 

hold  his  capital  city  for  three  and  a  half  years 

against  a  Hindenberg,  his  feat  would  have  been  the 

equal  of  the  miracle  which  was  wrought  in  Jeru- 
265 


266  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

salem  by  Simon  Bar  Gi'ora,  the  Son  of  Man,  the 
Jesus  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  Son  of  Man  believed  himself  the  Liberator 
of  his  nation,  the  Messiah,  in  the  military  meaning 
of  the  word.  He  was  proclaimed  king  of  the  Jews. 
He  assumed  the  role  and  the  prerogatives  of  a 
sovereign.  He  coined  money.  He  essayed  to  es- 
tablish an  everlasting  dynasty  upon  his  eldest  son 
(peter) f  Eleazar,  against  which  the  gates  of  death 
should  not  prevail.  His  faith  in  himself,  in  the 
divinity  of  his  mission  and  in  the  God  of  his  people 
did  not  save  him  from  defeat.  He  risked  and  lost 
all.  He  paid  the  patriot's  price,  and  met  an  in- 
glorious end.  His  triumphal  entry  was  not  into 
Jerusalem,  but  into  Rome,  where  he  was  given  a 
mock-triumph  by  the  ragamuffins  who  followed  the 
triumphant  Titus  in  his  procession  of  pomp.  The 
good  Samaritan,  bom  within  the  shadow  of  the 
holy  Mount  Gerizim,  this  son  of  Joseph,  the 
eponymic  name  of  Samaria,  the  ancient  northern 
kingdom  of  Israel,  which  had  atoned  for  the  Mac- 
cabean  defection  by  outdoing  Judah  in  the  vain 
but  valiant  attempt  to  re-establish  the  dominion  of 
the  Great  King,  this  spiritual  son  of  David,  was 
accorded  the  form  of  a  trial  in  Rome,  condemned, 
and  hurled  from  the  Tarpeian  or  Capitoline  Rock. 
The  Capit-oYme  Rock  was  the  "  place  of  a  skuU," 
the  Calvary,  or  Golgotha,  of  the  New  Testament. 

As  seen  through  the  shattered  facets  of  the  glass 
of  time,  as  Simon  Magus,  Menandros  and  the  other 
distorted  reflections  of  his  great  personality,  he 


CONCLUSION  267 

has  not  been  recognized  by  his  later  followers. 
The  Helene  of  Tyre  in  the  Magus  legend  becomes 
the  bride  at  the  wedding  of  Cana,  not  far  from 
Tyre,  the  Magd-Helene,  the  Maria,  or  First-Con- 
cept, or  First-Mother  of  all,  the  gentle  soul,  the 
victim  of  ritualistic  equivocations  who  was  faithful 
to  her  "  Lord  and  Master  "  even  unto  the  end. 

John  of  Gischala,  as  he  is  called  by  Josephus, 
this  John  who  was  the  "  brother  of  James,"  and 
both  according  to  the  Gosples,  being  the  Boaner- 
ges, or  the  Sons  of  Zebedee,  that  is.  Sons  of  the 
Sanguinary  Sword,  the  lightning  flash  of  which 
was  as  deadly  as  the  thunder  fires  which  they  would 
call  from  heaven  upon  the  sympathizers  with  Rome 
—  this  John  of  Patmos,  or  Potamos,  the  River,  or 
rather,  the  island  in  the  River  Tiber,  met  a  fate 
in  that  island  prison  scarcely  less  cruel  than  that 
of  his  brother,  the  Son  of  Man.  James  the  Just, 
otherwise  Jacobus  Justus,  the  Justus  of  Tiberias, 
or  Jakohos  Mikros,  James  the  Little,  that  is.  Jaco- 
bus Paulus,  or  Paul,  the  Epistle  writer,  has  with 
his  pen  apotheosized  his  brothers  and  ranked  them 
among  the  gods  or  god-like  men  whose  fame  shall 
never  die.  It  is  he  who  consciously  framed  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity  out  of  the  facts  of  the 
current  history,  shifted  the  scenes  from  Rome  to 
Palestine,  turned  back  the  clock  of  time,  crypti- 
cised  the  characters,  and  made  a  doctrine  accepta- 
ble to  the  Romans  and  which  still  endures,  in  his 
clever  endeavor  to  put  the  history  of  his  great 
brother  in  a  form  which  should  survive  the  burning 


268  SIMON  SON  OF  MAN 

hatred   that   the   Roman   rulers    and  the   Jewish 
polity  bore  toward  him. 

The  Veronica  of  the  Apocryphal  Gospels,  to 
whom  legend  has  given  the  blood-printed  portrait 
of  the  Son  of  Man,  was  the  Berenike,  who  was  al- 
most empress  of  Rome,  and,  with  her  brother 
Herod  Agrippa  II,  was  in  Rome  to  witness  the 
humiliation  of  the  king  of  the  Jews  and  the  triumph 
of  his  conqueror. 

We  have  shown  that  the  demons  of  the  Gospels 
were  the  Romans  of  profane  history ;  so  also  we 
have  endeavored  to  rehabilitate  the  sublime  char- 
acter of  the  greatest  of  all  the  Semitic  people 
from  the  coarse  calumnies  of  the  devils'  advocate, 
the  traitor  of  his  race,  the  ex-priest  Flavins  Jo- 
sephus,  the  Slanderer,  the  Deceiver  par  excellence, 
whose  mission  in  the  world  seems  to  have  been  to 
cause  the  blackest  slanders  against  his  people,  in- 
dividually and  collectively,  to  be  accepted  under 
the  sacred  name  of  truth. 

The  Joseph  of  Arimathaias  who,  the  Gospels 
say,  provided  the  Son  of  Man  with  a  tomb,  was 
Joseph  Bara-matthias,  that  is  to  say,  Joseph  Son 
of  Matthias,  the  Flavins  Josephus  of  profane  his- 
tory. This  traitor  to  the  great  cause  the  Gospels 
have  treated  far  kindlier  than  he  deserves. 

With  the  Jewish  nation  eviscerated,  Jerusalem, 
the  very  organic  heart  of  the  race,  torn  away, 
sacrificed,  burned  up,  annihilated,  the  people  de- 
ported as  slaves  into  every  land  or  scattered 
abroad   in    the    great   Diaspora    throughout   the 


CONCLUSION  269 

world,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  earthly  hopes  of 
the  disheartened  and  defeated  exiles  faded  out 
into  the  heavenly  twilight  that  followed  the  sun- 
set of  their  hope.  Is  it  a  matter  of  surprise  that 
their  ideals  of  a  great  material  future  for  their 
race  suffered  a  radical  change,  and  that,  abandon- 
ing all  hopes  of  ever  reviving  Jerusalem  on  this 
earth,  their  thoughts  went  out  beyond  the  glory 
of  the  sunken  sun  and  the  evening  star  to  a  "  heav- 
enly Jerusalem,"  and  when  now  "  no  city  was  left 
standing  "  that  they  dreamed  of  the  distant  celes- 
tial "  city  "  yet  "  to-come?  " 

The  heir  to  the  earthly  kingdom  of  Simon  Bar 
Gi'ora,  therefore,  the  peter  or  first-born  of  the 
Son  of  Man,  dreamed  the  dream  of  building  his 
house  in  the  very  capital  of  the  conqueror,  and 
of  establishing  upon  that  fateful,  if  fatal  rock 
the  spiritual  d3^nasty  that  has  endured  for  eight- 
een and  a  half  centuries,  and  against  which  the 
gates  of  death  have  not  yet  been  able  to  prevail. 

We  trust  that  the  reader  has  read  this  work 
with  an  open  mind,  with  as  sincere  a  desire  to  at- 
tain the  truth  as  that  which  guided  the  authors 
in  the  discovery  of  the  facts,  for  we  believe  that 
the  cumulative  force  of  the  arguments  herein  set 
forth  will  not  fail  to  convince  every  candid  mind 
courageously  seeking  the  truth  concerning  the 
identification  of  the  Son  of  Man. 


BS2421 .5.R55 

Simon,  son  of  man;  a  cognomen  of 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00013  2185 


